Grails with GSP or JSF.

Question

I am thinking of learning java web applications preferably grails but I like jsf as well especially primefaces. However currently I've not being able to successfully use grails with jsf 2+, if I can do that, that's all I need. Thus I would the experts out there those who know both technologies I mean and not a flame war, point out to me what I will be loosing/gaining if I use grails with gsp or stay with jsf and possibly spring framework or jsf only with standard j2ee web application.

Once again I re-iterate I don't want to start flame wars I just want honest opinions from those who know both technologies.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I haven't heard of JSF running on top of Grails, but you can mix some JSF plugins like icefaces using the JSF2 plugin.

Answer 2

Grails is heavily geared towards convention over configuration and the convention is definitely to use GSP. Unless you have some concrete motivation for needing to use JSF with Grails I would not go down that path. You will lose a lot of the value that comes from using Grails and spend a lot of time getting the two approaches to work well together. As Nathan Hughes mentioned, if you want to use JSF then Seam is probably the best choice out there, and if you don't need to use JSF then Grails is by far the best option that I have found. I would definitely not want to combine the two.

Answer 3

If I go on with grails and gsp what I would be missing i.e. from jsf? Also please don't forget if there are other frameworks that can be use with jsf other than seam. I just like jsf 2+ as a front-end but if gsp I mean can offer the same functionality with the same ease of learning then grails is the winner.

Answer 4

OK, guys I just saw zk being used with grails. Any recommendations on using zk as the view layer instead of gsps?