Shale - The Next Struts

David Geary, a fellow with a lot of Struts cred and a serious affection for JSF gave a repeat of his JavaOne talk on Shale. It was largely an introduction, a bit of sales pitch, and some Craig McClanahan hero worship (which I’ve been guilty of myself, of course).

David is a very knowledgeable guy, and is great at providing thoughtful answers to questions. He’s a dry speaker, though. Nonetheless, the richness of content made the session worthwhile. I was pleased to see him use the term “UI logic,” as I have often met resistance (all logic belongs in the magic logic tier!) when I refer to “presentation logic.”

He also did a great job of introducing Commons Chain, which I recognized existed but needed to be reminded can serve as a valuable library in many contexts, not just within frameworks.

Finally, there was some hand-waving about AJaX support with “remote” commands being added to chains. Encouraging talk, but nothing to see here, yet.