IndicThreads >> The simplicity of Struts was an important reason for its popularity. With WebWork + Struts, do you think that level of simplicity will be maintained?

Patrick Lightbody >> I have no doubt that the simplicity will stay. That is in fact one of the main motivators for the merger. Don Brown, who is on the Struts development team, and I have had long conversations about making frameworks simpler. Much of the Struts Action 2.0 goals are to take what WebWork 2.2 has done and expand upon it, making the framework even simpler than WebWork or Struts Action 1.x ever was.

"Struts Action 2.0 aims to be simpler than WebWork or Struts Action 1.x ever was..."

IndicThreads >>With version 2.2, WebWork adopted Spring as its IOC container. So it's really three major Java frameworks coming together in WebWork + Spring + Struts. Is there a risk of WebWork + Spring + Struts not staying lightweight enough?

Patrick Lightbody >> First, just to be clear, WebWork supports various IOC containers and doesn't require any of them. What we did is we accepted that Spring is the de-facto leader in the IOC container space and that it didn't make sense to keep building our own container. By recommending Spring over our own, we were really just simplifying life for developers. However, we continue to support other containers, including Pico and Plexus.

"By encouraging WebWork and Struts users alike to use Spring, Spring will benefit greatly and will continue to evolve..."

I believe that by encouraging WebWork and Struts users alike to use Spring, Spring will benefit greatly and will continue to evolve as the user base demands more from it. As for whether it will remain "lightweight", which is a subjective term, I believe that is up to Spring more than Struts or WebWork.

IndicThreads >> Struts today enjoys great integration with all major Java IDEs. How do you intend to keep that support post merger? Are you working with any of the IDE vendors on this?

Patrick Lightbody >>To be quite honest, we don't know. Previously, the IDE integration came after Struts Action 1.x was a success. My gut says that the IDE vendors will again likely wait for the market to demand that kind of integration before they put any resources forward. Naming the project "Struts" isn't enough - the market has to use it too.

"We'll try to do our best not to drastically change configuration files and base classes in Struts Action 2.0... "

On the other hand, we'll try to do our best not to drastically change configuration files and base classes, with the hope that this not only helps migration and compatibility, but that it helps with tool support as well.

IndicThreads >> WebWork is one of the frameworks that feature in the Ajax wave. What are the Ajax features that WebWork offers and will these features survive the merger?

Patrick Lightbody >> I have no doubt that AJAX support will survive the merger. The only question is in what form. This will really depend on the user community. At this point not enough users are seriously using the AJAX features to be able to help us determine what the future will look like.

"Not enough users are seriously using the AJAX features..."