JOT Object Technologies has released JOT Servlets version 1.12. JOT Servlets is a rapid application development framework for web applications. This version includes JOT Views, a web page rendering component for MVC architectures.

With JOT Views, the JOT Servlets framework can be used either as a complete web applications solution or as a content rendering component in JSP and Struts applications.

The JOT Servlets architecture provides a clean separation between Java programming with JOT Beans and web page design with JOT Templates.

JOT Servlets reduce J2EE application complexity for web designers and Java developers. Web designers use standard HTML, XML, and WML to create dynamic content for JOT Servlets. Programmers build Java Beans web components with the JOT Servlets API. Web designers and Java programmers can develop dynamic web content using the skills they already have.

JOT Templates control web content without imposing programming syntax on the web page design. No JSP scripting or JSP expression language programming is required with JOT Servlets. The framework is transparently compatible with web design tools from FrontPage to Flash.

JOT Servlets can be downloaded for free. A license fee that includes support and source code is required for commercial use.

For more information go to http://www.jotobjects.com.

I suppose for me the most interesting part of their site is the What about JSP? section.

I agree with their arguments, but wonder if those arguments are powerful enough to move people away from JSP's as for my money XMLC also provides a solution to these problems with the extra benefit of being free.

Ian Purton
Technical Director
AlertRobot.co.uk

<b>List of Names</b><br>
#foreach($person in $persons)<br>
    $person.name<br><br>
#end

List of Names<br>#foreach($person in $persons)<br> $person.name<br><br>#end

:) By some reasons JOT people do not like $ sign in html and think that JOT prefix is much cooler.
Other than that I do not see _any_ technical differences from Velocity too

List of Names<br>#foreach($person in $persons)<br> $person.name<br><br>#end

You might say that Velocity really is a knockoff of Perl or Basic if you are going by superficial syntax similarities alone. :-)

Template processing by itself is pretty straightforward. I wrote a very functional Perl library for this task with a couple of hundred lines of code. I also developed an architecture that hoists server side data onto the page and then processes the template with Javascript. This works fine too (other than browser version bugs that ultimately drive you crazy). But when you get into a robust Java framework with caching and object lifecycle and indirection and recursive content and late binding features there is whole order of magnitude more complexity. We have thousands of hours invested in JOT Servlets and several major upgrades in the pipeline.

Comparing JSP with Velocity with JOT is sort of like comparing Perl with Java with Smalltalk. Within their respective domains they offer similar functionality. But that doesn't mean that one is "better" or "more innovative" than another.

Canvas is my favorite.
http://beust.com/canvas/

Server License: US$ 595.00 per web server for each domain name
Developer License: US$ 225.00 per workstation for single user access
Developer Bundle: US$ 1,195.00 includes 1 server license and 5 developer licenses


honestly I can't see them make a single sale with so many good opensource frameworks available

With all those open source application servers maybe BEA and IBM are going out of business too! :-) Seriously, these reasonable fees mainly cover support and are not even an issue in the overall costs of developing and maintaining enterprise web applications. Many business prefer the stability of a commercial product. It is free to download for non commercial uses.

Talk about a product which doesn't appear to innovate at all. It doesn't even seem to offer any evolutionary improvements over what is already available, and you have to pay for it! $595 per server, per domain is a very real expense for many businesses, especially considering the free alternatives. Additionally, to claim that just because the product is a commercial offering it is more stable is completely baseless and often untrue.

JOT is open to any kind of licensing arrangement that works. The default structure provides unlimited support and is meant to cover the range from corporations with data centers all over the world to small businesses with one server. Hopefully the fee is low enough that pricing is not a decisive consideration in the context of budgets for training, development, deployment and software lifecycle costs.