News

JavaServer Faces (JSF) spec wins approval

• By Rich Seeley
• March 8, 2004

The Java Community Process is refreshingly low-key compared to much of the software industry, so it was probably not surprising that there was very little hoopla this past week when JavaServer Faces (JSF) specification 1.0 won approval from its members.

The standard designed to ease development of GUIs for Web applications was in the works for so long that some people almost gave up on it.

Jochen Krause, president of Innoopract, a German software vendor and a JSF supporter, told This Week in Java that as recently as six months ago, he wasn't sure the spec would ever be completed and approved.

But he said that despite remaining skepticism about its viability, JSF is "a big step forward." He anticipates that by the summer, major vendors such as IBM and Sun will begin to offer tools for developers working on Java-based Web applications.

That will greatly simplify the creation of interfaces, especially for event-driven Web applications, he predicted.

"At least in the next 12 months all major Java IDEs will have WYSIWYG design for Web applications," Krause said. "At the moment, you have a mix of many technologies to create user interfaces. You have HTTP, HTML, JSP, JavaScript and so on. You have to know all these technologies to create user interfaces. JSF is taking away some of that. For example, you're not exposed to HTTP anymore."

He said the new specification will make it possible for developers to take new approaches such as working exclusively with Java objects. "That will make development much easier and code more maintainable," he noted.

More information, as well as a download of JSF, is available at http://java.sun.com/j2ee/javaserverfaces/download.html