Best view layer with simple URLs for an EJB3 application

Question

Hi. I would like to get your input on what would be the most fitting view layer for EJB 3.0 [1] Java application for me.

JSF is no good because it is a mess when it comes to web URIs. I would like a view framework which would help with automating html form submission and validation while using clean URIs like example.com/story/1 or example.com/?story=1 (using GET method).

My first guess was to go with Spring MVC. Spring is great but it feels like an overkill since JPA plus EJB already does the heavy lifting. I only need couple of things, well, four of them actually:

1. JPA, EJB 3.0 for business layer
2. Clean URIs: example.com/story/1 preferably
3. HTML form helpers (validation, converters, etc)
4. Templating similar to Apache Tiles or JSF's ui:composition

So, which one would you pick?

Ad [1]: It's used mainly for JPA and stateless/stateful local session beans

Answer 1

My first guess was to go with Spring MVC. Spring is great but it feels like an overkill since JPA plus EJB already does the heavy lifting.

I disagree with this statement. Spring need not be an "all or none" proposition. I see nothing wrong with using Spring web MVC if that's all you need.

I'd put your EJBs and JPA behind Spring service interfaces and let the web tier deal with those, using the usual Spring idiom.

Answer 2

Apache Wicket supports RESTful URL:s out of the box using a combination of BookmarkablePageLinks and PageParameters constructor of the WebPage object. Wicket does also support Velocity templates and since it's entirely OO/POJO based it's easy to maintain in general.

Wicket fits into the Model and View parts of the MVC Model 2 and contains some samples of generic validators and specified form validators and as such it has sufficient mechanisms for supporting such features.