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What was the state of "frameworks" in 2005, particularly in Java-land. Struts? Spring? Anything that didn't make you want to gouge your eyes out? Even outside

by jowiar 15y ago

What was the state of "frameworks" in 2005, particularly in Java-land. Struts? Spring? Anything that didn't make you want to gouge your eyes out? Even outside of Java-land, Rails had yet to hit 1.0, and Django was just starting. The evolution of the framework has come a long way in 6 years, and frameworks have become less "one size fits all" and more task-appropriate. I think a more appropriate title for this post is: "Why I Hate circa-2005 Java Frameworks"

mechanical_fish 15y ago
A "2005" in the title would be good. Then I would know that I needn't rush to read this, as I read it in the original.
lr 15y ago
WebObjects was in its prime in 2005, and ran circles around everything out there (Java or not). Even in it's completely unsupported (by Apple) state today, it probably still runs circles around most of the frameworks.
harisenbon 15y ago
Knowing this was from 2005 would have been helpful. Having the date be written at the very bottom of the article didn't make things any better. While many of his points are valid, his comparison of carpentry to using a framework takes a very select view of what goes into building something. Of course you need a hammer to build a house, just like you need an if-else statement to build a webpage. If you're building a 10 page webapp (spicerack ) you probably don't need a framework. If you're building a full-fledged web-system (house) you don't need a framework, but you'll be much more productive for having one.
- yxhuvud 15y ago
  Need a framework? Perhaps not, but I'd still use Sinatra for problems of that size since it helps keeping simple things simple.
deepGem 15y ago
Yep, 2005 was the era of Spring and Struts 1.0. Now, if that was not enough, someone in our project had built wrappers around Spring !!!. Key requirement for reading through that code - a bottle of scotch.
- geebee 15y ago
  I agree. Not a coincidence that 2004 was the last year O'Reilly updated its "Java Servlet and JSP Cookbook." After that, it was all "recipes in spring" or some other framework, and that was also pretty much the beginning of the end for me with Java. I don't blame the language so much as I blame the frameworks.
geebee 15y ago
Really interesting that you mentioned 2005. To me, this is the year that Java programming become extremely unpleasant. This was discussed a bit in a few earlier threads... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2516940 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2516940 I actually think that at the time, the servlet spec, jsp, and jdbc were reasonably good, productive ways to write software. It was admittedly verbose and laborious compared to modern languages and frameworks like Rails or Django (I'd also agree it was verbose compared to PHP and Python at the time), but it wasn't a depressingly long setup that was hard to even contemplate for simple apps. It was only a little more complicated, and it did come with some benefits. My advice to programmers who are curious about what has become of Java is to go to the springsource home page, and work through the MVC tutorial. If you agree that this is a reasonable way to write software, then you'll disagree with me that web application with Spring has become too complicated. I actually think that if you were willing to go back to the original servlet spec, and use libraries, Java wouldn't be quite so bad. You can still pick and choose, and you're not at all obligated to use Spring. There are better MVC frameworks out there. To me, I don't really see the point, though. I know, there are problems that have already been solved, why re-solve them... I think maybe some people have more mental trouble with what another poster called "shoehorning your knowledge through the various abstractions of a framework" (I'm paraphrasing here). I've done this with Spring and Struts 2 (a different product entirely from Struts), and it was unpleasant. I've done this with Rails, and while I like Rails a lot and consider the trade-off worth it, I still never really felt in control (maybe I would if I used it more). If I use Java, I'd prefer to just go back to the 2004 days, write servlets, and build from there with libraries. I do like Dependency Injection, so I'd probably have to use some kind of framework - maybe Juice? But really, even though I prefer to be at a lower level and don't like frameworks, I think the future for people like me is Sinatra and/or webpy. Nothing really stopping me from doing more "low level" programming in those languages, trading efficiency for a code base that I really understand through and through. That said, the difference between that approach and Java circa-2004 isn't as great as the difference between, say, Rails and Spring. Once you need (or just want) to drop to a lower level of code, I really don't think Java is all that bad.

by jowiar 15y ago

mechanical_fish 15y ago

A "2005" in the title would be good. Then I would know that I needn't rush to read this, as I read it in the original.

lr 15y ago

WebObjects was in its prime in 2005, and ran circles around everything out there (Java or not). Even in it's completely unsupported (by Apple) state today, it probably still runs circles around most of the frameworks.

harisenbon 15y ago

Knowing this was from 2005 would have been helpful. Having the date be written at the very bottom of the article didn't make things any better. While many of his points are valid, his comparison of carpentry to using a framework takes a very select view of what goes into building something. Of course you need a hammer to build a house, just like you need an if-else statement to build a webpage. If you're building a 10 page webapp (spicerack ) you probably don't need a framework. If you're building a full-fledged web-system (house) you don't need a framework, but you'll be much more productive for having one.

yxhuvud 15y ago
Need a framework? Perhaps not, but I'd still use Sinatra for problems of that size since it helps keeping simple things simple.

deepGem 15y ago

Yep, 2005 was the era of Spring and Struts 1.0. Now, if that was not enough, someone in our project had built wrappers around Spring !!!. Key requirement for reading through that code - a bottle of scotch.

geebee 15y ago
I agree. Not a coincidence that 2004 was the last year O'Reilly updated its "Java Servlet and JSP Cookbook." After that, it was all "recipes in spring" or some other framework, and that was also pretty much the beginning of the end for me with Java. I don't blame the language so much as I blame the frameworks.

geebee 15y ago

Really interesting that you mentioned 2005. To me, this is the year that Java programming become extremely unpleasant. This was discussed a bit in a few earlier threads... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2516940 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2516940 I actually think that at the time, the servlet spec, jsp, and jdbc were reasonably good, productive ways to write software. It was admittedly verbose and laborious compared to modern languages and frameworks like Rails or Django (I'd also agree it was verbose compared to PHP and Python at the time), but it wasn't a depressingly long setup that was hard to even contemplate for simple apps. It was only a little more complicated, and it did come with some benefits. My advice to programmers who are curious about what has become of Java is to go to the springsource home page, and work through the MVC tutorial. If you agree that this is a reasonable way to write software, then you'll disagree with me that web application with Spring has become too complicated. I actually think that if you were willing to go back to the original servlet spec, and use libraries, Java wouldn't be quite so bad. You can still pick and choose, and you're not at all obligated to use Spring. There are better MVC frameworks out there. To me, I don't really see the point, though. I know, there are problems that have already been solved, why re-solve them... I think maybe some people have more mental trouble with what another poster called "shoehorning your knowledge through the various abstractions of a framework" (I'm paraphrasing here). I've done this with Spring and Struts 2 (a different product entirely from Struts), and it was unpleasant. I've done this with Rails, and while I like Rails a lot and consider the trade-off worth it, I still never really felt in control (maybe I would if I used it more). If I use Java, I'd prefer to just go back to the 2004 days, write servlets, and build from there with libraries. I do like Dependency Injection, so I'd probably have to use some kind of framework - maybe Juice? But really, even though I prefer to be at a lower level and don't like frameworks, I think the future for people like me is Sinatra and/or webpy. Nothing really stopping me from doing more "low level" programming in those languages, trading efficiency for a code base that I really understand through and through. That said, the difference between that approach and Java circa-2004 isn't as great as the difference between, say, Rails and Spring. Once you need (or just want) to drop to a lower level of code, I really don't think Java is all that bad.