This presentation introduces the features of Struts2, and the framework differences between it and Struts, by iteratively migrating a simple application in 8 steps.

The presentation covers topics including running Struts and Struts2 in the same web application, configuration differences, Struts2 Tags, dependency injection, interceptors, validation, using models and data conversion.

Many companies and most, if not all, software today utilizes open source. Whether it is databases, application servers, frameworks or libraries, these projects are fast becoming a standard commodity for building business-related functionality upon and speeding up development time. Sometimes technology evaluations are done, but frequently the library is simply slipped into the code base to address an urgent requirement - often without evaluating the technology beyond the immediate need.

In this talk I will address this and many other facets that need to be considered when utilizing open source in your project – how open source evaluation should be different from other product evaluation; guidelines for implementing corporate procedures; the benefits of companies contributing back into the open source community; and legal aspects that every developer should be aware of.