Web frameworks in Java: 10 years of history!

From the Servlets/JSP to Struts, JSF and Spring @MVC: how did we get there?
(presentation from Nik Trevallyn Jones and Michael Isvy at the SingaSUG (Singapore Spring User Group).

Transcript

1. 1 Agenda Ÿ  To all attendees with a mobile phone connection: please answer this survey: http://tinyurl.com/singasug Ÿ  Nik TJ and Michael I : web frameworks in Java Ÿ  Salah C. and Srikanth N : Spring MVC live coding session N
2. 2 Nik Trevallyn-Jones Ÿ  Contract Consultant Ÿ  Been teaching and Consulting on Spring since 2008 Ÿ  Has Taught Spring to more than 1000 students in 6 years Ÿ  OpenSource Contributor to several Spring projects –  Spring HATEAOS, Spring ROO… M
3. 3 Michael  Isvy Ÿ  Training Manager at Pivotal (APJ region) 2008 - Spring - Tomcat 2009-2012 -  Spring -  Tomcat -  Cloud Foundry -  GemFire… 2013 onwards -  Spring, Cloud Foundry -  Tomcat, Redis, Hadoop -  GemFire N
4. 4 Hadoop / Pivotal HD GemFire /SqlFire Apache Tomcat N
5. 5 Web frameworks in Java mvc M
6. 6 Disclaimer: framework versus standard Ÿ  JSF is part of Java EE specification Ÿ  Technically JSF is not exactly a web framework but rather a specification and an implementation –  We’ve used the word “framework” here to keep things simple N
7. 7 2000: Servlet/JSP public class MyServlet extends HttpServlet {" " " public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) {" …" } public void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) {" … } " } Not a POJO Request params parsed manually Form validation done manually No I18N support … Verbose XML config M
8. 8 2003: Apache Struts public class UserAction extends Action {" " " public void execute(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) {" …" } " } Not a POJO Request params parsed manually Form validation done manually Verbose XML config … public class UserForm extends ActionForm {" " private String name; public String getName() { return name; } public void seName(String name) { this.name = name; }" } No Internationalization support N
9. 9 2003: Apache Struts Ÿ  Java community formed a consensus Ÿ  Quickly became the way to go for Java web frameworks Ÿ  So what happened next? 9 N
10. 10 2004: JSF Ÿ  Struts was created by Craig McClanahan –  Also one of the key founders of Servlet, JSP, JSTL and Tomcat Ÿ  Craig wanted to create a component-oriented Web framework –  Event/Listener model M
11. 11 2004: JSF Ÿ  Problem: view layer was good but some major limitations –  Form validation very limited –  Couldn’t disable JavaScript –  No support for “GET” methods… Ÿ  Specification versus framework –  For it to succeed, JSF should have been a framework, not a specification ▪  Frameworks can be updated every month ▪  Java EE Specs are updated once every 2 years M
12. 12 2005: The JSF / Struts 1 & 2 story Original plan What happened Struts JSF Struts 2 Struts WebWork Struts 2 M
13. 13 2005: Spring MVC without annotations Ÿ  Spring MVC was similar to Struts –  But more modern ▪  Easier to extend ▪  Well integrated for Dependency Injection public class UserController extends SimpleFormController { 
 private UserService service; public ModelAndView onSubmit(Object command) { //... } } N Not a POJO Request params parsed manually Form validation done manually Simpler XML config … No Internationalization support
14. 14 2008: Spring @MVC Ÿ  Annotations are the way to go for Spring @MVC! public class UserController extends SimpleFormController { 
 private UserService service; public ModelAndView onSubmit(Object command) { //... } } @Controller public class UserController { @Autowired private UserService service; @RequestMapping(value="/users/", method=RequestMethod.POST) public ModelAndView createUser(User user) 
 { //... } } N Now POJO based!! No XML needed for controllers anymore!!
15. 15 Popularity of Java Web frameworks in 2014 http://pages.zeroturnaround.com/RebelLabs-AllReportLanders_TheCuriousCodersGuidetoJavaWebFrameworks.html N
16. 16 Let’s talk about CSS and Javascript Ÿ  Back in 2008, there were plenty of small CSS frameworks –  None of them really did the job Ÿ  Now there is Bootstrap! M
17. 17 What is Bootstrap? Ÿ  Originally called “Twitter Bootstrap” Ÿ  Available from 2011 Ÿ  Typography, forms, buttons, charts, navigation and other interface components Ÿ  Integrates well with jQuery M
18. 18 Most popular project on github! M
19. 19 Let’s talk about JavaScript Ÿ  Back in 2008, there were too many JavaScript frameworks Ÿ  Now there is jQuery! M
20. 20 Spring @MVC and the View Layer Ÿ  Spring @MVC is neat and elegant on the controller side –  Form submission, Validation, File upload, testing… Ÿ  Spring @MVC is view-agnostic –  No much tooling for integration with CSS/JavaScript frameworks –  It’s your job to create the custom tags you need ▪  But that’s not hard! N
21. 21 Form fields: Without custom tags <div class=“control-group” id=“${lastName}"> <label class="control-label">${lastNameLabel}</label> <div class="controls"> <form:input path="${name}"/> <span class="help-inline"> <form:errors path="${name}"/> </span> </div> </div> CSS div Label Form input Error message (if any) JSP M
22. 22 Using custom tags Ÿ  First create a tag (or tagx) file <%@ taglib prefix="form" uri="http://www.spring…org/tags/form" %> <%@ attribute name="name" required="true" rtexprvalue="true" %> <%@ attribute name="label" required="true" rtexprvalue="true" %> <div class="control-group" id="${name}"> <label class="control-label">${label}</label> <div class="controls"> <form:input path="${name}"/> <span class="help-inline"> <form:errors path="${name}"/> </span> </div> </div> inputField.tag Custom tags are part of Java EE N
23. 23 Using custom tags Ÿ  Custom tag call Folder which contains custom tags <html xmlns:custom="urn:jsptagdir:/WEB-INF/tags/html" …> … <custom:inputField name="firstName" label="Enter your first name" /> <custom:inputField name=”lastName" label="Enter your last name" /> </html> JSP file 1 line of code instead of 9!! N
24. 24 Some tags already exist! Ÿ  Dandelion for DataTables (nice addition to Spring @MVC) –  dandelion.github.com <datatables:table data="${userList}" id="dataTable" > <datatables:column title="First Name" property="firstName" sortable="true" /> <datatables:column title="Last Name" property="lastName" sortable="true" /> </datatables:table> JSP file M
25. 25 Dandelion is based on jQuery Datatables and Bootstrap Ÿ  Click, sort, scroll, search, next/previous… Ÿ  PDF and Excel exports… M
26. 26 Survey results!!
27. 27 Conclusion Ÿ  Once  upon  a  2me,  Java  community  was  unified  around  Struts!   Ÿ  JavaScript  and  CSS:  you  now  have  good  frameworks!   Ÿ  Spring  @MVC  now  is  the  most  popular  Web  framework  for  Java   Ÿ  Create  your  own  custom  tags  for  the  View  layer   Ÿ  Use  Dandelion  for  your  DataTables   N