users@jax-rs-spec.java.net

[jax-rs-spec users] Re: [jsr339-experts] Re: MVC

From: Reza Rahman <Reza.Rahman_at_oracle.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:26:27 -0400

I have to admit I personally think we could have worded the survey a bit
better. MVC was in fact the wrong term to use in hindsight. An action
oriented framework would have been more accurate. That being said, I do
think from the comments to the survey that the respondents actually
understood exactly what we meant. In fact, there may be sound reasons to
still carry forward the MVC term with this effort if we decide to go
forward with it.

For better or for worse I think we did want to deliberately defer more
specific detail of where such support belongs (e.g. more towards JSF,
more towards JAX-RS or somewhere in the middle). If we agree this should
be done, I think the rest may be relatively minor differences of
semantics? Clearly there are parts of JSF that are applicable to the
solution and there is clear value to utilizing many parts of JAX-RS.
Likewise there are parts of JSF that aren't a very good fit to the model
and not all parts of JAX-RS is needed for the solution. An additional
value to keeping JSF at arms length in this particular case is that the
users of this new solution are likely to be averse to JSF in the first
place, potentially needlessly limiting the success of the effort.
Beginning from a JAX-RS starting point also has the potential advantage
of a blank slate instead of a constant struggle to think in terms trying
to reconcile clearly opposing models.

I say this honestly from the perspective of a long time supporter of the
JSF ecosystem that would still likely never choose to use an action
oriented framework myself. The practical reality in this case is that
the voice of the community may be unwise to not take very seriously.

Please note that any views expressed here are my own and may not
necessarily reflect the position of Oracle as a company.

On 6/30/2014 10:55 AM, arjan tijms wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 4:25 PM, Sergey Beryozkin
> <sberyozkin_at_talend.com <mailto:sberyozkin_at_talend.com>> wrote:
>
> Hold on. I don't like you making the assumptions about me kind of
> dismissing that the conversation about the intersection between
> JAX-RS and JSF should take place. Neither I like you quoting
> single lines from my earlier comments which loses the context.
>
>
> I'm sorry if I misquoted you. I just tried to keep the amounts of
> quoted text to a minimal.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I think you're saying here
> is that you
> don't care whether JSF will use JAX-RS as a foundation or not?
>
>
> You got it wrong. Let me clarify: I do not mind if Java EE
> developers working with JAX-RS will start using JSF for the MVC
> work or not once the JAX-RS MVC work is done, and presumably JSF
> becoming a de-facto 'consumer' of JAX-RS MVC.
>
>
> Okay, that's indeed what I thought you were saying. Thanks for the
> clarification though ;)
>
> That is not important for me. What is important for me is that I
> or other users can work with JAX-RS MVC without having to depend
> on JSF
>
>
> So this is the part I guess we just have different opinions about.
> That doesn't matter of course, since if we all agreed with each other
> from the get-go there wouldn't be much discussion needed, would there?
> Let's agree that we disagree on this specific part.
>
>
>
> To sum up I propose to take the following into account:
>
> 1. Just "MVC" is too broad
> 2. Use "MVC push"/"action oriented" for what Spring MVC does
> 3. Use "MVC pull" for what JSF does
>
> Would that make things more clear?
>
>
> AFAIK we have not started a technical discussion yet and as such
> I'm not sure why are we talking about these technical distinctions
> here
>
>
> Well, the general discussion about this has started (as we're having
> this discussion now). I don't think it's necessary for the discussion
> to become deeply technical in order to make this subtle but important
> distinction.
>
> In much of the communication towards the user, e.g. via the Java EE 8
> survey, it's now communicated that Java EE 8 will either get "an MVC
> framework" or will get "an additional MVC framework". For existing
> Java EE users this may sound confusing. You can either interpret it as
> saying that JSF is thus not an MVC framework,or wonder why two of the
> same things are needed.
>
> The simple answer is that JSF IS an MVC framework too, but of a
> different kind, and that the new work is not about an identical thing
> to JSF but a different kind of MVC. Claiming MVC to be solely about
> the kind of MVC that Spring MVC does is IMHO not correct.
>
> Much of this confusion can be avoided by consistently talking about
> MVC push or action oriented. Even without going into the technical
> details I think we can agree that everything that's planned for JAX-RS
> MVC is about the push / action oriented variety.
>
> Regards,
> Arjan