Getting started with Tapestry

2010-10-31T17:06:00.004+01:00

Do you want to learn another web framework? Are you familiar with Java, Eclipse and Maven? Then it's easy to try Tapestry and I recommend starting with the latest alpha release of Tapestry, since it is an enhancement from the stable 5.1 release and adds some useful stuff.
I have about 1.5 years of experience of using Tapestry, starting just after Tapestry 5.1 was released in May 2009 and I must say that it has been very addictive. It's not always very easy to know how to solve a particular problem as a novice, but when you find the "right way" of doing it in Tapestry the solution is often just a couple of lines away.

So, what are the major benefits with Tapestry?

Good separation of web design and page logic

The built-in services in Tapestry are easy to use

The great support for creating web components, where Java code, html, javascript and css is encapsulated and easy to reuse

It's easy to build your own services, good programming practices is the natural choice.

An active mailing list

It feels like I can go on forever on the benefits of using Tapestry, but the best one is that it just feels good to go to work when you are working on a web project based on Tapestry.

And what about the major drawbacks? About 1.5 years ago, I started looking at alternatives to Servlets/JSP programming that has been what I was used to. It just felt like there must be alternatives with better support for building complex web applications. I quickly found Tapestry, but it was not an obvious choice, due to the following factors:

Difficult to find a good introduction guide

Not many books on the subject

There was no clear path to follow to get from novice to advanced user

A limited user base

Under normal circumstances these drawbacks would be more than enough to keep me away, but I realized that there was a commitment from the Tapestry developers to do something about it and although it was hard to find out exactly how everything was fitting together, I also realized that if I only got more knowledge this was exactly the solution I had been looking for.

With the upcoming release of Tapestry 5.2 I am confident to recommend any web developer who wants a framework that provides productivity features both for new development and maintenance work.

The Tapestry project

A new Tapestry site

Getting started with a minimal application

Many useful examples (cookbook)

Ronsoft AB - Web development notes

Getting started with Tapestry