Web has evolved and Java web frameworks are still in the 90's. What does the Hacker community think about which Java Web framework is going to nudge out the rest and really adopted by the masses.<p>Play is beautiful, Roo is confusing and seems like another me too. Struts, JSF are operating from coffins.<p>what will survive in 2012 and next few years?
I think the question is really twofold as Java in the enterprise and Java for the general hacker have very different use cases.<p>The enterprise space is where java still lives and breathes, and in that area I don't see play making any immediate headway. Spring and JSF will probably remain top candidates. I wouldn't clump JSF with struts just yet, with the release of JEE6 and JSF2 it has gained new traction. I'm no fan though and would love to see Spring dominate.<p>In the personal hacker space Play is great, but grails is pretty awesome too.<p>As for the next few years, I think it really depends on how Java 8 is implemented. I think the JDK has a healthy future, but If java remains a part of it will depend on a healthy implementation of closures
I have dropped the server side frameworks in favor of Dojo, jQuery and Backbone. I use JAX-RS as my service layer to provide RESTful services to the newer stack. I have seen more and more developers abandoning the server side page frameworks in favor of the JavaScript frameworks and a REST API. JAX-RS with the JPA is a pretty nice set up for developing modern web apps, and I think we will see it's adoption increase for those that elect to use Java for their back end.
My Favorite is thye Wicket framework. After having used JSF , which is a hellhole, I found wicket to be remarkably versatile and powerful. It integrates cleanly with Jquery. DOJO aw well as Spring. It is the only J2EE framework where designers can tweak HTML templates without the programmers having to worry about integrating those changes back.
I was hoping to see more responses :). Looks like hacker community already has ditched Java Web frameworks.<p>I personally like how Play has evolved, but adoption is severely thin. They just got typesafe backing but Spring with the muscle behind it might be able to shove the rest away.