[PJUG Javamail] Consumer Based Web Development

Roger Bixby javafreek at spasticmonkeys.com
Sat Jan 9 13:50:41 EST 2010


I've been developing a Seam application for the past few months and 
really like it. It uses JSF/Facelets and, as mentioned previously, 
supports REST-based urls. Unfortunately, to use Seam in a WAS 
environment without a lot of headaches, you would need to upgrade to WAS 7.

James Perkins wrote:
> Great comments Ken thanks!
>
> Yes, the POST is going to be the biggest challenge. Having to think it 
> terms of how a search engine indexes is really hurting my brain :-). 
> I'm so used to just developing an application that has no need to 
> care. We will have some kind of category type drill down which 
> probably would require JSF links so that is my main concern.
>
> I'm not really to keen on creating static pages myself. It was the 
> only other thought I had at this point. I'm still researching some so 
> we'll see what happens.
>
> We can move to a Java EE 5 compliant server, but our client isn't on 
> one currently. The company I work for is an IBM business partner so we 
> use WebSphere Application Server. I know WAS 7.0 is Java EE 5 
> compliant, but my boss didn't want to have to install it if we could 
> get it running on WAS 6.1 since we already have a B2B app working on it.
>
> Again thanks for your expertise here.
>
> --
> James R. Perkins
> http://twitter.com/the_jamezp
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 10:55, Ken Paulsen <Ken.Paulsen at sun.com 
> <mailto:Ken.Paulsen at sun.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     James Perkins wrote:
>>     I'm getting ready to start the process of creating a consumer
>>     based web site. This is really the first time I've had to create
>>     a consumer based site. My original thought was I would
>>     JSF/Facelets to create the site, but got to thinking this might
>>     not work out so well as I need search engines to be able to index it.
>     Depends on how you do your navigation.  If you use POSTS for all
>     your navigation (JSF makes this easy), then yes -- you'll likely
>     have problems getting Google to index your site.  However, JSF can
>     behave like many other frameworks which don't provide "navigation
>     handler" type features, and you can simply do:
>
>         <a href="nextpage.jsf">Next Page</a>
>
>     This will index fine with Google.  Used this way it's no different
>     (nor is it any more helpful) than many of the other UI frameworks.
>
>     The difficult areas would be if you were expecting a generated
>     table of links / buttons AND you want them indexed by google...
>     then you'd want JSF to generate them and then you're back to the
>     POST or URLs which contain view state which google won't handle
>     well.  You'd have to do extra work to make reproducible GET links
>     in your table...
>
>>     I've created web applications before, but they have always been
>>     internal applications or applications that required a user to log
>>     in and have an account.
>>
>>     Doing some reading on SEO I'm seeing now that an entire JSF based
>>     site might not be the best approach. The main problem being you
>>     can't really bookmark JSF pages and links are mostly created
>>     using JavaScript which the spiders can't crawl.
>     I think the POST is mostly the issue.  Although some
>     implementations of links/buttons do use JS that may also cause
>     problems.  It's very easy to get around the JS-based components.
>
>>     My question is have others run into this? Are people really still
>>     creating static pages for stuff like this? Do any of you have
>>     suggestions on where to begin or possibly a framework that would
>>     work better than or with JSF? I've heard of PrettyFaces, but I
>>     think you have to be on a Java EE 5 compliant server which to
>>     start we will not be running.
>     There is also RESTFaces and I think Seam has something and a
>     couple others.  I'm not sure which is best, or if any are worth
>     using (I haven't had this requirement either).  However, in the
>     next version of JSF2 there will most likely be a standardized
>     approach for REST URLs which should address most if not all of
>     these issues.
>
>>     I've also considered creating a library to generate static pages
>>     based on templates. That way each time a new item or category is
>>     entered into the database a new page is not having to manually
>>     created and/or updated.
>     Yes that could be done too... although it would probably be just
>     as easy to design your site to only use GET URLs and create custom
>     components and/or use PrettyFaces (if it helps) for ensuring all
>     URLs are generated the way you want them.  Generating pages gives
>     you the overhead of manipulating files in your web tier and
>     keeping it in-sync with your DB when content is removed or updated
>     -- could be a pain.
>
>     People's other suggestions might be worth exploring too... but
>     there are a lot of benefits of JSF (this area is obviously not one
>     of them).  Also, you said you would not be using a Java EE 5
>     server... does this mean JSF 2 is out of the question?  I strongly
>     recommend JSF 2 over previous versions of JSF.  Is this b/c of
>     size?  Performance?  Hardware is incompatible?  Unless your
>     hardware isn't able to run the software, I would look seriously at
>     Java EE 6 -- it's just better.  (If you hardware can't run modern
>     software -- then you have bigger issues ;-) .)
>
>     Anyway, good luck whatever you decide!
>
>     Ken
>>
>>     Thanks in advance,
>>     --
>>     James R. Perkins
>>     http://twitter.com/the_jamezp
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