| In the four years that the Sun, IBM, and MyFaces implementations have been available, the MyFaces project has arguably been the front-runner when it comes to innovation and dexterity. It also is the most responsive to user issues and has a vibrant community that ensures progression (you can always find free support on the mailing lists). With JavaServer Faces (JSF) 2.0 around the corner, preparation is already under way as the committers quickly review the early access draft and plan for MyFaces 2.0.
This “anarchic collaboration,” a term coined by Roy Fielding, is the essence of the Apache MyFaces project: many talented people share information with a single-minded objective to make JSF a pleasurable developer experience for all. The Tomahawk, Trinidad, Tobago, Orchestra, and MyFaces implementations have been downloaded over a million times. Before the Sun JSF 1.2 implementation was released, we could safely say the MyFaces implementation was the only reliable way to build production JSF applications. Even today, many developers are happy with simply using MyFaces 1.1.x and Facelets to form a potent combination.
This book assumes you are interested in JSF and component-oriented development. It takes you through a journey beginning with the unique aspects of JSF, introduces you to the MyFaces specification, and continues with building your first application. Once you’ve mastered that, this book advances your skill set further by taking you into the world of the Tomahawk component library. Here, you learn the power of componentization in JSF (you will be able to build a complex application with a few lines of code) and see the advantages of having a vibrant community like MyFaces continually developing new components into the sandbox like CAPTCHA-, media-, exporter-, and AJAX-enabled UI widgets. |
