Getting Started with Apache Tapestry
Apache Tapestry is a fast, easy to use, high-performance, general purpose web framework. Tapestry eschews heavy XML configuration, base classes, and boilerplate code: instead it embraces convention-over-configuration, letting you build your application from simple, concise POJO (Plain Old Java) page and component classes. Tapestry is laser-focused on giving you maximum bang for your programming buck, and this shows up as a broad range of well-integrated features, including extensive Ajax support. Don't let unfamiliarity get in the way of learning this powerful, friendly tool.
Tapestry is different from traditional action-oriented frameworks, such as Struts and SpringMVC, because it is component-based: it organizes the overall application into pages, and builds pages from reusable components. Tapestry leverages this overall map of the application to take over many responsibilities normally tossed in the developer's lap, such as building and dispatching on URLs, and managing server-side state.
Tapestry is very easy to get started with: a few seconds using Maven and you'll have a template project ready to customize. In this session, we'll start with that template, add in some database support, and have a somewhat polished application that includes client-side and server-side input validation and basic Ajax support. Along the way we'll learn a bit about what Tapestry is doing under the covers to support you as a developer: obsessive attention to exception reporting, live reloading of classes, the ease with which reusable components can be created, and lots of meta-programming. We'll also touch on what makes Tapestry great in production: its terrific performance, its approach to organizing and deploying JavaScript, and how it exposes other assets to the client in a scalable, efficient way.
About Howard Lewis Ship
Howard Lewis Ship is the creator and lead developer for the Apache Tapestry project, and is a noted expert on Java framework design and developer productivity. He has over twenty years of full-time software development under his belt, with over ten years of Java. He cut his teeth writing customer support software for Stratus Computer, but eventually traded PL/1 for Objective-C and NeXTSTEP before settling into Java.
Howard is respected in the Java community as an expert on web application development, dependency injection, Java meta-programming, and developer productivity. He is a frequent speaker at JavaOne, NoFluffJustStuff, ApacheCon and other conferences, and the author of "Tapestry in Action" for Manning (covering Tapestry 3.0). Lately, he's been dipping his toes into alternate languages, including Clojure.
Howard is an independent consultant, offering Tapestry training, mentoring and project work as well as training in Clojure. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Suzanne, and his son, Jacob.
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