ANNOUNCE:New JSFCentral content: Ted Goddard podcast on Icefaces and more

[kito99.kmann.virtua.com]

Hello,

I am pleased to announce episode 3 of the JSFCentral podcast series. This podcast is an interview with ICEsoft senior architect Ted Goddard. It was recorded in May of 2007 at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco, CA. Here’s an excerpt:

Kito:
Okay, so you talk about Ajax Framework and Ajax Push, let' s talk about the Ajax Framework part. Is ICEfaces a component suite or framework or both?

Ted:
It' s both really. ICEfaces starts off with an architecture for updating the page. Once you have the ability to generally update the page, you start using a technique we call Direct-to-DOM rendering. Then you can build a bunch of interesting components around that. We also make use of some JavaScript libraries like Prototype and Script.aculo.us so that we can expose the capabilities of Script.aculo.us to the developer. Script.aculo.us is a really nice JavaScript API but what if you are not a JavaScript developer? Then you need a nice Java API for working with Script.aculo.us, so what we do is provide Script.aculo.us effects modeled in JSF so that the JSF developer can have drag and drop and effects capabilities.

Kito:
You mentioned Direct-to-DOM techniques, what is that?

Ted:
Direct-to-DOM is the technique that ICEfaces uses to render the JSF components. The way it works is, instead of rendering to a stream as JSF normally would, ICEfaces components render into a document object model on the server. That allows us to efficiently detect just the changes to that DOM and send just the changes down to the browser. The ability to send just the changes to a browser page is one of the key user interface features of Ajax. When you interact with an Ajax application, you don' t want a full page refresh, you just want the page to be updated in place. This change detection through the Document Object Model on the server is a very effective way to do that.

Read the full article or download the podcast here: Ted Goddard Podcast.

[dan.j.allen]

Definitely check out this podcast. ICEFaces is a very exciting technology because it is both innovative and efficient. The team is very focused on making JSF more compelling than trying to do Ajax by hand with jQuery or Dojo. Much of what Ted talks about just got included in the forthcoming version of Chapter 12 from Seam in Action.

[www.supernovasoftware.com]

Dan,

Do you prefer Richfaces or ICEFaces currently?

Do you think your preference might change with the release of JSF 2.0

[dan.j.allen]

I would say it depends. If I wake up feeling like I need tons of rich-client elements on my page, then I have to go with RichFaces because it is just ridiculous how many components it has. On the other hand, if I want Ajax fast and free, then ICEFaces gives me that, and that is what I would prefer. Also, Ajax Push is only done right with ICEFaces (the RichFaces solution is sort of an after thought). Another thing is RichFaces responses are typically larger than ICEFaces reponses.

You are likely going to need both, at least for the time being. I doubt JSF 2.0 will really impact users all that much (aside from the standardization of Facelets). It will really just make component libraries perform better or in a more consistent way.