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News: Comparing JVM Web Frameworks - a response to Matt Raible

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  1. Comparing JVM Web Frameworks - a response to Matt Raible (2 messages)

    Peter Thomas wrote up a response to Matt Raible's java web framework comparison thing, which I mentioned two or three weaks ago on TSS. He's basically calling Matt out for being too subjective on the web framework comparison.

    Basically, he's got a good point: Mr. Raible took ratings from the community, and adjusted based on responses from the wounded ducks out there (A twitter message said he "adjusted ratings based on community feedback. Tapestry folks responded, Wicket enthusiasts did not.")

    Mr. Thomas says that Mr. Raible's comparison's been around for a long time, but it's mostly entertainment for conferences, not an actual comparison. If it were a comparison, Matt would be able to make quantifiable comparisons, and community feedback wouldn't do much to affect it, unless the quantification was wrong.

    Of course, such things are subjective anyway - I might like how Wicket does stuff, or I might not. If I was saying "Wicket is better than Spring MVC," which it is, that bias would factor in. OTOH, if I like Spring MVC, it's going to win over Wicket for me even if others see a real benefit in how Wicket does its thing.

    Mr. Thomas closes with this:

    So please, by all means continue to do your web-framework comparison song and dance at conferences and the like, but please stop this charade of serving as an objective source of information on web-framework comparison. You certainly do have a reputation and level of respect in the Java EE community, and I guess there are still many development teams and stakeholders who would blindly follow your advice and recommendations, which I find highly unfortunate (for example, don’t get me started on your recent SOFEA obsession ;).

    It looks like you had a great time at the Rich Web Experience, I just hope you don’t add “conference ambience” as a rating factor, because in that case other frameworks don’t stand a chance against Spring MVC and Grails. Just saying.

    Ouch. So who would you trust to make such a comparison? Anyone have any ideas how to make it quantifiable? Do you trust Mr. Raible's methodology? I don't.

    Edited by: Cameron McKenzie on Dec 6, 2010 10:24 AM
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  2. RIA - really interesting analysis[ Go to top ]

    Not to beat a dead horse to glue but it is a comparison and you can't waive it off because it's not purely quantitative. What Matt Raible brings to the table is a some analysis and a set of observations on features, job demand trends, development critical mass trends, and now whining trends. If you have ever had to go through the process of selecting and driving adoption of a framework you would appreciate that he adds valuable arms-length context, objectivity, and provides a short list on candidates and selection criteria. He seems to eat his own dog food with AppFuse and work the space in his day job.

    If you don't like his analysis or weightings, roll your own.  A comparison doesn't have to be purely quantitative to be valuable.

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  3. easy answer[ Go to top ]

    "Rolling your own" is a bit of an easy defense isn't it? That makes pretty much any criticism pointless. Would you rather than Matt just writes his blog without anyone ever 'whining' about it?

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