I've got my portlet running for some time (see previous post). I even have a weird hack to enable file downloads. The Spring portlet MVC framework helped me a lot to structure the portlet really nice.
But now a colleague has started to write portlets as well. And guess what, he is as frustrated as I was. To make things worse, even with my previous Pluto experiences, there is nothing I can do for him! It is all so complicated with nondescript exceptions and configurations all over the place.
These 2 reasons (bad exceptions and configuration) are exactly the thing why Spring is such a joy to work with compared to using an old style EJB setup.
And, you can even do better. The web framework Wicket gives you no configuration at all! And it still gets better: no more JSPs! Wicket to conquer the world!
+1 interesting
ReplyDeleteHow true, how true.
Being the collegue I can just say that I am more than disappointed with the portlet specification and the portlet engine pluto especially.
True, portlets have been around for a while and maybe that is why it seems to be soooo old fashioned, architecture wise. Additionally, most people immediately associate 'portlet' with 'reusable component' which means 'gooooooood'.
That is not only not necessarily true but 'overdoing' it seems to be creating a more dependent and tightly coupled system than you would have without portlets.
Oh well, at least I can support Erik on the wicket-issue: This is one wicked (pun intended :) framework. The more I do with it the more I come to love it.
Although you really have to get used to writing web applications like normal Java apps.
But hey ... there is always something, right?! ;)