Java Framework Struts is Dead; Long Live Struts!

With the merger of WebWork and Struts now it is crystal clear that our beloved (not to speak bad about the dead) java web framework is no more with us. It’s parts will however be salvaged and added to WebWork. Let’s review what happened.

It doesn’t give me much pleasure to say that I already spoke about struts demise in January, 2005. It was effectively dead since then. Now it is finally brain-dead. But I wouldn’t gloat like Larry about the demise as Struts after all has provided MVC support for tons of Java developers worldwide (and because I don’t speak ill about the dead).

So what happened?
Patrick Lightbody from WebWorks said:

Yes, it’s true. The WebWork development team (Jason and I) have been working with the Struts development team (Don Brown and Ted Husted) and have come to the conclusion that the best thing for Java community would be to merge WebWork in to Struts.

Read Ted’s email here, but the gist of it is this: WebWork is a great technology, and Struts is a great community. It’s a perfect match and bringing the two together will only be better for WebWork and Struts users alike.

Ted Husted in his post provides further details on the action plan:

We would to amend the Struts Ti sandbox proposal to provide for
merging WebWork 2.2 into our codebase. The WebWork merger would be Ti
phase 1. Much of the work now proposed for Ti would become phase 2.

* Ti phase 1 = WebWork 2.2 + Struts 1.x compatibility library and
migration tools
* Ti phase 2 = phase 1 + Commons Chain integration + Beehive’s Page
Flow + simplified annotations + quick development mode

When the Ti phase 1 has coalesced and is providing a high degree of
Struts 1.x compatibility, our intention would be to propose Ti as a
Struts Action Framework 2.x candidate. Until that time, we would
continue to consider Ti a “next generation” proposal and, pending a
decison by the PMC, avoid attaching the 2.x label to Ti.

Ti is Struts Titanium, the mythical next generation framework proposed in January this year by the Struts team. At that time Struts moved into maintenance mode.

Lightbody further clarifies beyond any shadow of doubt the current state of affairs:

There will likely need to be more backwards compatibility work for Struts than WebWork, since the hope is to start with WebWork and add features related to Struts, not the other way around.

You cannot say I didn’t warn you.

PS. On a different note I am kind-of warming up to Groovy. Have you checked Grails?