I am newbie to JSF. But I feel the biggest difference is that JSF use faces-config.xml to control the business logic flow.
Forget the standard UI components, in JSP, you can use self-defined or third party's UI library as well. That is just a problem of different tags.
Maybe I was puzzled.
Appreciate your opinions.
Chen
I have never used JSF, but the idea I have is that JSF are just like asp.net pages, where you drag and drop your controls.
I prefer to use javascript libraries to handle the GUI, and servlets, ejb... to do the server part.
I have never touch JSF and I think I never will.
MeTitus
I'm actually astonished at how many people use GUI's to build JSF pages. And even more astonished at how many people think that JSF is a GUI builder to help them make pages!
In fact, using JSF GUIs is asking for trouble. I'm not saying they don't work to some extent, but you never know or understand the full power of the framework when you use them. Not too mention the bloat, glitches, and bugs the GUIs put into your code base. To put it simply, I have never in all my years of programming/web coding (12+ years) found a GUI that could automatically write code as good as me doing it manually.
Anyways, I digress... JSF is not a "drag'n drop" GUI. It's a web framework built off of J2EE (which includes JSP). A JSF page is actually a JSP page that is fed through the faces servlet. The faces servlet translates the JSF tags (on the JSP) in JSF specific way. This extends the capabilities of J2EE without a lot of extra effort on the developers part. Additionally, JSF does a better job at enforcing the MVC pattern. It keeps model, view, and controller components separate. Whereas, JSP actually encourages crossing of these boundaries.
So if you were to ask me which is better, JSP or JSF? I would ask you, what are you developing? A quick, simple, not a lot of bells-and-whistles web app? Then use JSP. JSF would be a little overkill. If you're developing a full-fledged web application that contains multiple pages, complex navigation rules, and requires extended control? Then JSF all the way.
CowKing
> Additionally, JSF does a better job at enforcing the
> MVC pattern. It keeps model, view, and controller
> components separate.
I hundred-percent agree with this. And it seems to be the only obvious advantage of JSF.
> Whereas, JSP actually encourages
> crossing of these boundaries.
Not really. . . Such as the famous Model 2 architecture (ref: http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-1999/jw-12-ssj-jspmvc.html) for JSP is very MVC as well, which uses JSF control the flow and bean or servlet to encapsulate processing and data.
I more prefer to say struts or spring is a framework. Regarding JSF, I feel that it is like a big tag library based on MVC idea.
Anyway, I feel JSF is more like a transitionary technology and hopefully some really shining thing is in borning.
If you are looking to develop a rich user interface within a short duration of time span, then JSF is what you are looking for. More over its a hibernate persistance framework.
JSF works more the way like Swing does.
Comments are welcome... Even I am in the learning stage in JSF...
SirG
