Fullstack or Glue web framework?

Question

Working in web development we see numerous amount of web frameworks growing everyday. We also see people comparing framework X vs framework Y. But technically they all boil down to two types: fullstack or just a glue webframework.

A fullstack web framework is a web framework that offers front to back framework. Django and RIFE can bee seen as a framework of this type, where it has its own templating language and ORM.

On the other hand, a glue webframework is a framework that just acts as a glue to the other different components and leave the decision to developer to pick the ORM, templating, etc. Pylons and Spring framework can fall under this type.

So, the question is: as a developer, would you prefer choosing a fullstack framework or just a glue framework and then choose the ORM and templating by yourself? And why?

Answer 1

I prefer glue frameworks. Basically because I can use the ORM of my choice and use my previous experience with the "accessory" libraries.

I also can understand why people would prefer fullstack frameworks:

• Better integration.
• Support might be better oriented as you only have one choice for data access, ...

I suppose it's kind of a subjective matter...

Answer 2

I prefer a glue framework so I can pick and choose the technologies and libraries that best solve my problems at hand. For example, I probably wouldn't choose an ORM solution if I had to work with a legacy DB because it has been a nightmare in the past to do so.

Lots of managers that I've worked for prefer picking a full stack so they don't have to try and explain to the non-technical directors why the team is bring in more than one technology into the company.

The lawyers just hate frameworks and always seem to ask why we don't just write all of the code ourselves.

Answer 3

To use a food metaphor, I tend to prefer a la carte programming to the API buffet.

One of the really nice things about Spring is that you can use it for non-web or non-database apps. I've used it to write a batch processing app that pulled data from flat files, pushed data to a server via a REST API and then build an XLS file with a summary of the batch job.

As much as I like Rails, I shudder at the thought of trying to write that batch processing system in Rails.

Answer 4

Consider read this article:

http://yeiniel.blogspot.com/2009/11/web-development-in-python.html