Adversaries and Partners (Continued)

For the Business Developer
As mentioned previously, JSF is J2EE's new, standard Web user interface technology. Its goal is to simplify the often complicated task of building a robust Web user interface to the back-end business logic by offering a component-centric development approach. Working with intelligent Web components, as opposed to writing low-level code to construct Web applications, opens J2EE Web development to new audiences who may be slightly less technical but are more focused on the business aspects of application development.

The introduction of the JSF API in early 2004 offered both a specification and a reference implementation. The reference implementation included a set of base Web components (UI components) that covered the basics of Web development, in that they provided a set of core components to assemble Web applications. This set included components for building basic Web UIs with input fields, buttons, links, and a basic table or grid component to render tabular data.

Although the base components provided in the initial specification offered the basics, what was more important was that the specification itself was very flexible, and the intent was that the larger Java community would begin complementing the initial set of base components with much more powerful and specialized components, thus leading to more developer productivity. This intention has largely been achieved based on the growing community of JSF component developers. Some examples of external JSF component development providers include:

• Apache MyFaces – An open source JSF component library and a JSF implementation that provides a more advanced set of useful Web components, including scrollable data tables, trees, tab bars, and so on.
• Oracle ADF Faces – Oracle has rewritten its UIX technology, which was used primarily by Oracle applications, into a 100 percent, JSF-compliant component library. ADF Faces components also complement what is provided in the base components with over 100 new components geared toward Web developer productivity and power. These components include tree components, menus, date pickers, color pickers, and a multiselect shuttle. ADF Faces also comes with a performance-enhancing, partial-page rendering technology that allows only a portion of a page to reload, such as when scrolling through tabular data, as opposed to loading the entire page. ADF Faces also provides a handy dialog framework that can generate the necessary client-side JavaScript to open a popup window, accept input, and close itself. The newest feature of ADF Faces is its skinning technology, which allows developers to develop an entire look and feel for their Web application.
• WebGalileo Faces – JScape has recently introduced its latest set of very powerful JSF components that include tabbed panels, menus, trees, tables, an HTML editor, and even a calculator.
• ESRI – For the more specialized task of displaying graphical or map data, ESRI has introduced their own JSF component library.

These component libraries are just a small sample of a growing community. A relatively new JSF community Web site, JSFCentral.com, now tracks the progress of JSF technology in general and has a growing list of JSF component technology providers (see Resources). JSF component development is definitely heating up.

When comparing ASP controls and JSF components, we can conclude that because of the recent growth of new JSF component libraries, JSF technology is beginning to challenge ASP's dominance in the Web component-based development area. Now let's turn to a comparison of the platform's respective development environments.