Matt Raible

Virtuas Open Source Solutions

Seven Simple Reasons to Use AppFuse

AppFuse is an open source project/application that uses best-of-breed Java open source tools to help you develop web applications quickly and efficiently. Not only does it provide documentation on how to develop light-weight POJO-based applications, it includes features that many applications need out-of-the-box: authentication and authorization, remember me, password hint, skinnability, file upload, Ajax libraries, signup and SSL switching. This is one of the main features in AppFuse that separates it from the other "CRUD Generation" frameworks like Ruby on Rails, Trails and Grails. AppFuse is already an application when you start using it, which means code examples are already in your project. Furthermore, because features already exist, the amount of boiler-plate code that most projects need will be eliminated.

In this session, you will learn Seven Simple Reasons to Use AppFuse. If you don't use it to start your own projects, hopefully you will see that it provides much of the boiler-plate code that can be used in Java-based web applications. Since it's Apache Licensed, you're more than welcome to copy/paste any code from it into your own applications.

Migrating from Struts 1 to Struts 2

Struts has outgrown its reputation as a simple web framework and has become more of a brand. Because of this, two next generation frameworks are being developed within the project: Shale and Action 2.0. Action 2.0 is based on WebWork, and though its backing beans are similar to JSF, its architecture is much simpler, and easier to use.

Migrating to Struts Action 2.0 is more about unlearning Struts than it is about learning the "WebWork Way". Once you understand how simple WebWork is, you'll find that Struts Action 2.0 is a powerful framework that supports action-based navigation, page-based navigation, AOP/Interceptors, components and rich Ajax support.

Come to this session to see code comparisons and learn about migration strategies to use the kick-ass web framework of 2006.

Matt Raible is the Spring and Web Frameworks Practice Leader for Virtuas, an open source consultancy based in Denver, Colorado. He has extensive experience and expertise in open source, both as a user and a devleoper. Matt is the author of Spring Live for SourceBeat Publishing, and has been a speaker at many conferences worldwide, including ApacheCon, MySQL User's Conference, and a host of others. Matt also has created his own open source application, AppFuse, which glues together many popular open source projects such as Struts, Spring, XDoclet and Hibernate. As web framework alternatives to Struts, AppFuse supports JSF, Spring MVC, Tapestry or WebWork. Matt's blog site receives over three million hits a month, mainly due to its tips and tricks (and google hits!) for the Enterprise Java Developer. You can find Matt's blog at http://raibledesigns.com. Matt also contributed to the Apress book, Pro JSP Third Edition. Matt is an avid mountain biker, skier and golfer. Email: matt@raibledesigns.com