Is JSF Dying?

9 January 2010 2 Comments

We remember the hype that rocked java world with entry of this web tier framework. It is different as compared to those frameworks which (actually) are front runners of web application technology stack. These include Struts, Spring MVC, Tapestry and many more. These frameworks provided simple MVC based web tier, and a set of classes abstracting the non functional part. This definitely made us to leave behind the MVC implementation of Jsp – Servlet – POJO/EJB, and use these frameworks instead. These technologies varied more in richness than fundamentals. Arrival of Java Server Faces (JSF) triggered a different thinking line. Reusable components and event based programming buzzed around us.

It all started well, many vendors supported and are supporting it with implementations, and people also started using this technology. But then the cribs started and things changed over past couple of years..

Performance problems in JSF applications: This is the biggest hurdle. Many have reported JSF applications ending up in big performance problems during performance testing. Is it JSF or the way people implement it? We don’t know. But the end result is wastage of a lot of money in fixing those at a later stage. Sometimes we do miss deadlines also causing business impact. Bottom line is – we have performance concerns with this framework, and we want to know if it is really the case or we are doing something wrong.

Unavailability of Strong Support Forums: Many times developers stuck up in some problem, there are Java support forums but the community may be small for this framework, hence there is delayed response.

Lot of Time Spent in Troubleshooting: As we have less support, people end up exploring it on their own.

Unavailability of Blueprints of Different Implementations: JSF depends on view implementations. What we need are different implementation references, which can be followed by user community without having to explore much on their own.

Somehow it did Not Mature: It may be result of all above that it hasn’t matured to a satisfactory level. Hence recommendation of rethinking before selecting it floats.

Not sure if there are any concrete efforts to rejuvenate this different framework…