Presented by: Don Brown, Ted Husted, Jason Carreira, and Patrick Lightbody
Between the Clarity hubbub [1] and the Java Web Alignment brouhaha
[2], it came up that WebWork would like to merge with another
framework. Ted and Don followed up with the two core WebWork
developers, Patrick Lightbody and Jason Carreira. As it turns out,
they are very interested in merging WebWork with Struts. An archive of
our discussions is available as a Quick Topic thread [3].
As some of you know, the underlying idea behind Ti was to use WebWork
as the core of Struts Action Framework 2.x. Conceptually, WebWork and
Struts 1.x are very similar. We've often said, without embarrassment,
that WebWork does many things better than Struts 1.x. Meanwhile,
WebWork has the ability to provide a layer of almost full
backwards-compatibility for Struts 1.x, and we have already
demonstrated we can integrate Beehive's (very cool) Page Flow with
WebWork.
PROPOSAL: Bring WebWork into Struts through Struts Ti
We would to amend the Struts Ti sandbox proposal to provide for
merging WebWork 2.2 into our codebase. The WebWork merger would be Ti
phase 1. Much of the work now proposed for Ti would become phase 2.
* Ti phase 1 = WebWork 2.2 + Struts 1.x compatibility library and
migration tools
* Ti phase 2 = phase 1 + Commons Chain integration + Beehive's Page
Flow + simplified annotations + quick development mode
When the Ti phase 1 has coalesced and is providing a high degree of
Struts 1.x compatibility, our intention would be to propose Ti as a
Struts Action Framework 2.x candidate. Until that time, we would
continue to consider Ti a "next generation" proposal and, pending a
decison by the PMC, avoid attaching the 2.x label to Ti.
When BeeHive Page Flow matures, it may be proposed to be merged with
Struts Ti as phase 2. That work could also be positioned as a new
subproject depending on where the PMC feels it would be better suited.
As we work on Struts Ti, we would also expect that work would continue
on Struts Action 1.x, perhaps including feature changes that would
bring the codebases even closer together.
To get started, we could bring the WebWork codebase into the
Foundation through the Incubator. As part of the proposal to the
Incubator, we could elect Patrick and Jason as committers, so that
they could help us get Ti ready for an acceptance vote.
There is also a Confluence space [4] setup to manage documents
relating to the proposal.
-- Don Brown, Ted Husted, Jason Carreira, and Patrick Lightbody.
[1] Clarity -
http://opensource2.atlassian.com/confluence/oss/display/WAG/Clarity
[2] Java Web Alignment Group -
http://opensource2.atlassian.com/confluence/oss/display/WAG/Home
[3] Quick Topic Thread - http://www.quicktopic.com/33/H/KBfrHFUehSj/p16.1#QTmsg4
[4] Confluence space - http://opensource.atlassian.com/confluence/oss/x/kQY