On the Sun website: Due to a miscommunication, the community published version of the JavaServerFaces Specification was inadvertently released as the "Public Review Draft." It was not the intent of the Expert Group to enter the Public Review portion of the JCP process at this time.

Now before people start crying "conspiracy theory!", this actually makes a fair bit of sense. There was way too many FIXME's inside the spec, and even entire missing sections. This was bizarre for a public draft, which usually is of good quality and has to pass a JCP executive committee vote before being released as "public".

The bright side of this is that more feedback and comments can be given to the expert group. If you want JSF to be great, contribute your (realistic and well-thought out) ideas here and to the JSR comments email address (listed in the spec).

Well, I think the miscommunication was to their benefit, as the released spec has obviously generated a lot of feedback (assuming they read the message boards and/or concerned citizens are also writing to the committee). When it comes to feedback, early and often is best.

In the original thread here, many shortcomings were mentioned, but there seemed to be some agreement that at least JSF had embraced MVC (component model and event model). Folks generally thought the premature JSF failed to rival existing Java web frameworks such as Swinglets or Tapestry. Of the many complaints, grumbling that JSF is too reliant on a taglib is irrelevant -- taglibs are fine and only wrap underlying components. Also recurring was this silly chicken/egg complaint that JSF lacks a dedicated IDE.

Specific gripes that seem valid were that JSF lacks:

1) Skinnable L&F

2) Complex widgets (tree, table, menu, splitter, tab, dialog, etc)

3) Component aggregation

4) Encapsulation of resources such as images and stylesheets

5) Fully integrated client-side scripting

6) Architectural simplicity

7) Rich DHTML interactions (drag/drop, tear-off, etc)

8) Decent exception handling/reporting

Excellent summary Brian. I hope the committee is paying attention to your remarks!

Hi Brian
Don't forget to send your comments to the expert group
:)

Sergey

Oh well, looks like we'll have to wait another year or so to get the spec!

Sheesh!

Thanks for putting so nicely !
As mentioned - Please forward this to JSF committee.

Very good Summary, but don't wait for JSF !

You can have most of the stuff above NOW, including a full featured Business Process Engine !

Take a look at http://sourceforge.net/projects/cassandra/

jimi

One more :)

As I wrote here already we are long time users of Coldtags suite. I think it is the only "not a framework".
 Just a set of business components as it is supposed to be introduced. You do not need to change your
development style etc. They have a lot of elements from the above mentioned wish list: panels, tree etc.
Plus a .NET similar tags, including MS the only "framework" in the form of page.isPostBack property :-)
Guys are doing a really good job, check out their very small and nice things like eval, page cache and
compression for example. Taglibs are here http://www.servletsuite.com/jsp.htm

>Do you have any dates for future release (releases)?
Hey Dmitry – do not wait! Go ahead, at least we at Infos are with your team.

Building another layer on top of HTML/DOM/JavaScript or WML is short-sighted and doomed from the start.

Java Server Faces (JSF) will fail like CORBA if Sun sticks to HTML as its prime rendering target. (CORBA tried to build RPC on top of a crippled C API instead of daring to invent something better e.g. Java or .Nyet and got nowhere.)

Instead of using a crippled HTML browser as its target and getting nowhere Sun should target richer browsers propelled by XUL (XML User Interface Language) and join the desktop liberation campaign instead of perpetuing the Microtanic policy of no-new-tags or no-new-markup in Internet Exploder (and as a consequence promoting Microtanics richer alternatives such as 1) ActiveX plug-ins disguised as Web Forms and 2) .Nyet Windope Forms
that turn you into a Micropoly cash cow getting milked until perpetuity).

XUL delivers where HTML left off and lets you build rich cross-plattform desktop apps using XML markup. XUL includes tags for "complex" widgets such as trees, datagrids/tables, menus, toolbars, splitters, tabs, ranges, and much more.

Combinded with XHTML (for styled text in XML) and SVG (for 2D graphics in XML) and CSS for styling this new richer markups open the world to zero-admin, always-up-todate, light-weight rich desktop apps that run anywhere.

To top it off Web Start allows secure, single-click, hassle-free, auto-installation of XUL browsers/toolkits/apps from any HTML browser from anywhere (that is, any web server).

To see a GPL'ed XUL toolkit in Java for Swing or Eclipse SWT built from the ground up for Web Start check out Luxor online at http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net

To find out more about XUL check out the "Richmond Post" sporting heaps of links to other XUL browsers/motors/toolkits and much more online at http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/post

For your convenience here are the hyperlinks for Luxor and the Richmond Post:

 Luxor - GPL'ed XUL toolkit in Java

  The Richmond Post - Chronicle of the XUL Revolution

Let's analyse?

> 1) Skinnable L&F
??? In HTML? What you mean? Violation of accessibility settings?
I'd prefer the POSSIBILITY of adding YOUR OWN javascript that will modify DOM in Cool New IE browser. And you have this possibility.

> 2) Complex widgets (tree, table, menu, splitter, tab, dialog, etc)

Do It Yourself. I will need slightly different version of standard component.

> 3) Component aggregation

How to aggregate two textentries ? Let's assume you mean two 'subpages' on the page.
Exactly. This is the weakest point of JSF.

> 4) Encapsulation of resources such as images and stylesheets
> 5) Fully integrated client-side scripting

??? Any comments to help us, telepats?
What is 'Full integration' and diffs from 'partial' now?

> 6) Architectural simplicity

Who cares?

> 7) Rich DHTML interactions (drag/drop, tear-off, etc)

Well, I'd prefer the possibility to write for Lynx.

> 8) Decent exception handling/reporting

What about existing Servlet 2.3 possibilities?

Hi All,

I dont care about EJB, since our web applications really doesnt need EJB

and our clients are not ready to buy App Servers. (Even Gartner Report

says 60-70% of the so called J2EE Applications developed till now all

over the world use only JSP. Rest of the 30-40% only are in EJB).

Without EJB we developed nearly 5-6 Web Products full of JSP only without

any framework. Now weve seen ASP.NET and developed few Mobile

Applications and Web Applications in ASP.NET.

1. Our Mobile Application developed in ASP.NET and deoployed in IIS 6

with Mobile Tool Kit can be viewed in more than All Handsets

(Keep in mind no mobile application will be like c/server ERP app's)

How long will it take for Sun and others to give such a Framework or

something (Mobile Tool Kit) and a Free Server (like IIS). Another 5 Years

?

2. We are able to develop ASP.NET Web Services in no time. And we

deployed for production also. We are able to use it in Java with AXIS.

How long will it take for Sun to give ASMX like pages. Though AXIS is

there, Y Sun is not using it. Even it didnt support Struts also. But come

out with JSF with same functionality.

3. We are able to develop ASP.NET projects as fast as ASP OR JSP or Even

an Windows Application or Java Application using the Controls.

JSF has no way comparable with ASPX HTML Controls. Will Sun take another

1 year to develop such controls. Even JSF will take another year for

release.

4. ASP.NET Server Controls like DataGrid have minimised the development

of web projects drastically.

Will Sun gives such a Server Control atleast within a Year.

5. ADO.NET gives back the table data itself as XML and the Disconnected

DataSets will definately be useful.

Can we think of anything in near future from Sun.

6. Custom UI Controls can be developed in no time.

Sun, Did u heard about anything like this.

7. .NET is not available for Linux.

Beware, www.mono.org will give the answer within 3 to 6 months.

Im asking, Apache is only for Java Development. Y dont Apache get in to

.NET and develop a C# Compiler, .NET CLR, and other libraries for Linux

in Open Source. If they get into it, they can do the things within 3

months time, with the help of Such a big community support. Y not Apache

Team think about it.

8. Support for Oracle, SQL Server, and other OLEDB based DB's are

supported in .NET or even the DB Vendors are releasing their own Data

Providers for .NET. Ex: Oracle Data Provider for .NET

9. Multiple language Support. Definately in big organisations, VB

developers, C++ developers and new to MS developement from Java guys like

us can learn within few days C# and get in to .NET development. They

individually can develop the libraries. But can be used, utilising the

entire developer resources without the barrier of language.

Sun is not able to support Java itself. They are so busy people.

10. ASP.NET application are really faster than JSP.

Still and even after 2 or 3 years also, Sun cannot give a JVM without

Memory Leak.

Its upto u to decide. Java guys dont get angry on me. Cos, Its my

experience ive wrote here. Im not blaming others. Bye

Thanks,
Sankar.B
Informatin Dynamics

I'm truly confused by your post.

You don't go for strong separation and independence of your clients business processes and their application's views.

You don't point out the fact that there are a few free app servers (www.jboss.org). Free from OS'es too.

You site Gartner's report about market technologies, but don't extend yourself by pointing out trends. Things went from cgi and interpreted scripting a few years back to compiled multiplatform code. I suspect that view/business logic is becoming more prevalent myself.

You don't use the available support from what is an extremely resourceful Java development community. No frameworks, no well defined long term design strategies.

You overlook the resources available for wireless development in Java.

You point at IIS as a free server. Wow. You don't point out the security issues. Double wow. You don't point out that you are not stuck on a single mediocre OS. Triple wow.

You point out the .NET's mariade of programming languages like it's a *good* thing. .NET's strategy is to herd these cats all towards the OOD roadmap that the technologies you are bad mouthing swear by.

You sir, appear to have made a glancing blow at Java development without really ever extending yourself and realizing what resources were available to you after all.

It also appears that you have chosen to leave Java behind for Microsoft's wholey owned song and dance.

You sir, confuse the hell out of me. You appear to want all of the development done for you, without caring about the quality or longevity of your products.

Competition like this makes me smile. Keep up the good work. :)

Kris

1) Sun should quit pretending that the community process
is the correct forum for developing groundbreaking, first stage technologies. Community process is for extending upon second stage technologies, like J2EE, J2SE, etc. Trying to get 30 companies to create something groundbreaking, and before we die, is pretty much fruitless. The Java community needs something groundbreaking, Sun should quit trying to make everybody happy, and make it happen.

2) Sun should scrap JSF, AWT, Swing, and Portlets API and create a single API for the User Interface. It should include: design widgets, layouts, look and feel, property editors, event handlers, the full monty.

3) Make it simple, so normal people will think they can use it.
 
4) It should follow and learn from best practices in the leading MVC component frameworks .NET, and Eclipse.

5) Build in support for XUL which Adobe, Macromedia, etc will support and provide mojo with content guys.

Mark wrote:
>
>Sun should quit pretending that the community process
>is the correct forum for developing groundbreaking, first
>stage technologies.

One possibility would be for the JCP to survey, emulate, or even adopt existing third-party solutions -- rather than always trying to invent stuff from scratch.



>Sun should scrap JSF, AWT, Swing, and Portlets API and create
>a single API for the User Interface. It should include:
>design widgets, layouts, look and feel, property editors,
>event handlers, the full monty.

I believe Swing can be or is already exactly what you wish for. Swinglets is proof.



>Build in support for XUL...

Is XUL technicly better than XForms?

Your correct XForms not XUF is what should be included

Hi

What I expected was something like Applet, but lightweight which can run without a browser itself, and a somewhat similar functionality of combination of Midlet and Applet and which can run with a small program like Java Web Start or something else. Cos, Browser is not an environment which can run Applications like C/S. I thought if we develop once, it can be run in PC's and Small Devices as well, with some XSL implementations for each devices. So that for each Browser, Cell Phones, PDA's, with each XSL, the same application can be used.

All my Expectations are gone now. But, with Mobile Internet Tool Kit, MS has done this. Infact we dont need to develop the libraries for each device. They release Device Updates, which will convert the same ASP.NET pages to render in different pages. Even we can run C#.NET Windows Forms can be run from Internet or Intranet, without a browser as C/S. Even Oracle is using 9iForms deployed in 9iAS which ofcourse uses browser as a starting point, and deploys the Forms application as an Applet. But, again its not possible to render them in Small Devices.

My best advise is, Make Swing to support XSL for rendering. Based on the XSL reference and the Requested Device, Swing can be used extensively without these JSP, JSTL, JSF all these etc. frameworks.

Ive even seen a doc about droplets in Sun site once a month back.
But that too is not for all the Devices based on XSL. See its simple, I dont know y these people at Sun are not thinking about Rendering the Front End and the Front End Components. They concentrate more in Back end and Midlleware to encapsulate Business Logic seperately from Back end db. Same way, y dont seperate the Front End components and Rendering seperately which definately solves the probs. Encapsulating the Front End Components like the Entire Page design itself which will have text box, button, links etc. The Rendering Components may be XSL or something else which can takecare of front end validations and size of the Front End Components. So different Rendering Components can be developed based on the Browser, PDA's, Cell Phones, etc. But the Front End Component can be developed with Swing Like Components, but with Different Rending Components make it possible for using the same Front End Components to use for Client/Server, Browser, PDA's, Mobiles, etc. etc. So that, the Front End Components can be designed with IDE's or Tools like Visual Studio/Forte/JBuilder etc. and can be rendered using the Rendering Components.

Is it a Viable Idea or not...

Yours,
Sankar.B
Information Dynamics, Chennai, India

U can see my posting in this forum expressing my dissatisfaction:
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=427&thread=300444

and
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=427&thread=300386

"My best advise is, Make Swing to support XSL for rendering." -- Sankar

SwingML might be what you hope for, but this requires J2SE. For lesser Java platforms there's also thinlets, which supports MIDP. And for non-Java ordinary DHTML browsers, there's swinglets. All three of these are ready for XSL transformation.

Forunately I have the luxury of actually being able to code for Swing directly, but I understand others aren't so lucky. Cell phones are stupid.

Hi

There may be different tech avl. like SwingML, Midlets, etc., but none is available to develop once and render anywhere by just using a custom Rendering Component. At least with MS, the Mobile Internet Toolkit is available for all Mobile Devices and ASP.NET is released for all Browsers. But, there too, there is nothing available to develop once and use it as an Application, for all Browsers, for all Mobile Devices. Atleast, in future releases, it can be expected from MS.

Yours,
Sankar.B

Hi All,

I dont care about EJB, since our web applications really doesnt need EJB

and our clients are not ready to buy App Servers. (Even Gartner Report

says 60-70% of the so called J2EE Applications developed till now all

over the world use only JSP. Rest of the 30-40% only are in EJB).

Without EJB we developed nearly 5-6 Web Products full of JSP only without

any framework. Now weve seen ASP.NET and developed few Mobile

Applications and Web Applications in ASP.NET.

1. Our Mobile Application developed in ASP.NET and deoployed in IIS 6

with Mobile Tool Kit can be viewed in more than All Handsets

(Keep in mind no mobile application will be like c/server ERP app's)

How long will it take for Sun and others to give such a Framework or

something (Mobile Tool Kit) and a Free Server (like IIS). Another 5 Years

?

2. We are able to develop ASP.NET Web Services in no time. And we

deployed for production also. We are able to use it in Java with AXIS.

How long will it take for Sun to give ASMX like pages. Though AXIS is

there, Y Sun is not using it. Even it didnt support Struts also. But come

out with JSF with same functionality.

3. We are able to develop ASP.NET projects as fast as ASP OR JSP or Even

an Windows Application or Java Application using the Controls.

JSF has no way comparable with ASPX HTML Controls. Will Sun take another

1 year to develop such controls. Even JSF will take another year for

release.

4. ASP.NET Server Controls like DataGrid have minimised the development

of web projects drastically.

Will Sun gives such a Server Control atleast within a Year.

5. ADO.NET gives back the table data itself as XML and the Disconnected

DataSets will definately be useful.

Can we think of anything in near future from Sun.

6. Custom UI Controls can be developed in no time.

Sun, Did u heard about anything like this.

7. .NET is not available for Linux.

Beware, www.mono.org will give the answer within 3 to 6 months.

Im asking, Apache is only for Java Development. Y dont Apache get in to

.NET and develop a C# Compiler, .NET CLR, and other libraries for Linux

in Open Source. If they get into it, they can do the things within 3

months time, with the help of Such a big community support. Y not Apache

Team think about it.

8. Support for Oracle, SQL Server, and other OLEDB based DB's are

supported in .NET or even the DB Vendors are releasing their own Data

Providers for .NET. Ex: Oracle Data Provider for .NET

9. Multiple language Support. Definately in big organisations, VB

developers, C++ developers and new to MS developement from Java guys like

us can learn within few days C# and get in to .NET development. They

individually can develop the libraries. But can be used, utilising the

entire developer resources without the barrier of language.

Sun is not able to support Java itself. They are so busy people.

10. ASP.NET application are really faster than JSP.

Still and even after 2 or 3 years also, Sun cannot give a JVM without

Memory Leak.

Its upto u to decide. Java guys dont get angry on me. Cos, Its my

experience ive wrote here. Im not blaming others. Bye

Thanks,
Sankar.B
Informatin Dynamics

I am a little disappointed in JSF after waiting so long for the veil to come off of it.
From reading JSR-127, I distinctly got the impression that JSF would be more along the lines of Swinglets or Echo, and its use within a markup language like JSP would be <i>completely optional</i>. From this I also got the impression that a major goal of JSF was to have a more or less JavaBeans compliant widget set in which the code was written in the traditional client/server way with renditions out to HTML being determined by rich skinning mechanisms. And such a skinning mechanism might allow for renditions out to non-tag based widget sets, such as for cell phones and AWT/Swing. The best benefit is that you are finally doing OOP again for the GUI, and you have programmatically manipulatable tangible frames, buttons, textinputs, etc....and you can script scenarios to automate unit testing because you can push the buttons and fill in the text fields programmatically and programmatically read the results instead of replaying GET requests and extracting stuff out of HTML output. Is JSF really continuing in the direction that ASP and JSP have been going for so long?
<p>
We developed an API similar to Echo/Swinglets (only rendering to pure HTML3.2 for now) while waiting for JSF to come out, and have seen others having success with Echo. It is apparent that JSF has the benefits of allowing you to have real TreeModels, ListModels, etc. But it isn't obvious that there is a natural way to write apps like AWT/Swing developers do using JSF, dropping the use of JSP when you don't have the requirement being forced on you. Developing with a web pages mentality forces you to architect everything as a gross state machine in which anchors play the role of 'goto' between gross states. This aspect of the web development paradigm is completely antithetical to the design of just about every native and non-widget set designed on every operating system in which you program in any reasonably object oriented language. Good GUI development tools wouldn't be so damn hard to get for web development if the Widget set followed the JavaBeans model because that's how all the good GUI development tools are already written.

"Developing with a web pages mentality forces you to architect everything as a gross state machine in which anchors play the role of 'goto' between gross states." -- Rob

You well describe classic web application design. But the DOM now allows fine-grained browser processing equal to that of any GUI.

Is the aim of Sun to compete against .Net and provide a fully-integrated IDE to deal with the front part of light client applications ?
Sun's job is to publish specs ( and sometimes a non-optimized implementation), and let third-part editors build compliant softwares. Thus, the full time to cover such a project from the idea to the conception to the early access spec to the public spec ... to the first fully-compliant and optimized implentation is TOO long !

This Sun's way to work is great for the java developers community (tools are perfected by and for them) but it may not be as competitive as a big software firm with proprietary but very powerful tools (do u know what I mean ?) that implement the same initial concepts or ideas in a shorter time.

I really hope that Java won't fail due to a lack of integrated tools for jsp development. I hope that JSF won't be a struts-like framework (the leader of JSF is the leader of Struts...), too difficult to learn for beginners and when something wrong occurs in the development. The difference between "System" and "Corporate" developers will lead IT projects to call some JSF Experts to build a JSP Page: who needs a hammer to smash a fly ?

Just my 2 eurocents.
Yann

Do you have any dates for future release (releases)?
And also any information about planned IDE integration
(if any) could be very useful.

Thank you,
  Dmitry Namiot
  Coldbeans

I think it is not to wrong to cry conspiracy here. In fact the JSF specification process was up on the horizon an postponed our own efforts to develop a custom UI framework by about a year. I guess this is the same for a lot of different companies. The good thing is that the "expert group" now gets the right kind of feedback and hopefully manage to do better next time.

In fact, under the impression of the presumed release of the specification we put our own ui framework under early access as well (http://www.iternum.com/i3test) to protect our intellectual rights, since it is in at least in part quite similar to the preliminary JSF and we don't wanted anyone to cry Thieves at us.