Archive - 13.10.2015

How to select a good server-side Web framework

In the previous article I mentioned that we’ve decided to use Jetty+Guice+Servlet combination in our Java Web application. What was it motivated for? Why have we refused to use Jersey? Why have we decided to implement a separate Resource class for every Web action and even for every HTTP method?

When everyone of us selects a tool to work with, we all set some requirements to it, and it should meet all requirements to get a green light. Everyone knows them – these are such obvious things as code readability, ease of debugging/testing, following traditional coding practices (OOD, patterns) etc. But today I’ll tell you what requirements I set specifically for a good server-side Web framework. I’ll be happy to work with any technology stack meeting these key requirements, and Jetty+Guice+Servlet is just one of the options.

Briefly, the requirements are:

  1. Extensibility
  2. Common response format
  3. Automatic exception handling
  4. Transactionality of a request

And let me explain you what do I mean by this.

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