AppFuse = Ruby on Rail for Java

by Jeff Haynie on February 12, 2006 · Comments

I stumbled across AppFuse after finding a link on the WebWork site.

I digress. I worked on WebWork several years ago after Rick Oberg handed over some of the day to day management of WW to Matt Baldree, someone who worked for me awhile back. Matt is incredibly smart and back then was looking for something cool to work on. It’s been awhile since I’ve played around with it. Back then, I did some VoiceXML extensions to WW.

Fast forward. Tonight, I bought the Manning book on WW by Patrick Lightbody and Jason Carreira. I haven’t read it yet, just a skim, but they’ve done a good job of highlighting why WW is a good framework: it’s simple to use. App Fuse makes it even easier to build a skeleton site, fast. Not just a simple website, one with Hibernate, Spring and Webwork (including Clickstream and SiteMesh for templates/skins).

Move over RoR, enter App Fuse.

Simple steps:

  • Download App Fuse.
  • execute: ant new
  • enter your site name
  • cd into the site directory
  • edit properties.xml and enter your Database Connection info like username/password
  • execute: ant setup test-all
  • NOTE: if the mail test fails, edit web/WEB-INF/classes/mail.properties
  • execute: ant setup-tomcat deploy
  • start Tomcat
  • execute: ant test-canoo -Dtestcase=Login
  • Open http://localhost:8080/appname (mine was http://localhost:8088/jeff)
  • Done. Full website skeleton built on top of WW+Spring+Hibernate!!

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  • Hey Ken, you're right - or at least partially I think.

    I was less comparing AppFuse against Rails - but really comparing what Ruby on Rails has done for the Ruby language and what AppFuse *could* attempt to do for Java.

    Ruby has generators and other types of utilities that do add Authentication, Signup, etc. What's nice is that you generate them - instead of having a bloated framework of which you have all these wonderful capabilities - of which you only use 75%.

    Sometimes, less is more. If you can however have access - through plugins, generators, what not - to these extended capabilities, I think you have something powerful.

    Java has gotten into too much bloat - where everything is jammed into the JDK, into the J2EE for the containers, and what not. Library dependency versioning in Java is now akin to DLL hell for Microsoft. At least, that's been my experience.

    I'm not trying to cast Ruby as a better language than Java - although I think that it has a lot of merits and I enjoy both languages. What I am a believer in is that Ruby and its associated infrastructure, such as Rails and Gems, has solved some of the core problems that plague Java projects today (and in the past).

    Too often with Java projects (at large), sophistication translates into complication. I don't think this is very good and certainly shouldn't always be required. I think a loose example if Rake versus Maven. I could write a whole blog post on these types of comparisons (and probably will, or maybe you should?).

    Thanks for commenting.
  • Ken
    Sure, AppFuse brings to Java what Rails brings to Ruby but it also brings much, much more; Authentication and Authorization, User Management, Remember Me, Password Reminder, Signup/Registration, SSL Switching to name a few.

    Where is all that for Rails?
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