ActiveWeb (ActiveJDBC) and the Uber Lean Framework counter-revolution in Java

For years development frameworks have been constructed like a kitchen sink multi tool growing bigger and more bloated. PHP being barely object oriented is nothing but a list of 8000 functions. ICK! Even Java now has so many libraries and features that its a life effort to keep up.

Luckily, there is a answer. It's called JavaLite

JavaLite goes the other route. It doesn't even have sessions. It just barely got application scope. It doesn't manage HTTP get params.  It doesn't do much of anything really.

Or so it seems at first.

The main project is ActiveWeb. When I started using it a year ago its user guide was 20 pages.

It has a parallel project called Active JDBC. This is the bringer of magic.

Having suffered FIVE projects with endless pain updating and typing entities, and being horrified at database changes, ActiveJDBC is fully automatically generated behind the scenes and built into your compilation process. Hail JDBC.

The speed at which you can cobble together a ActiveWeb project is staggering.

LET me repeat that. STAGGERING

www.crossmypath.com is built entirely in activeweb. No JSF. No entity beans. No ugly php. Real code, readable, maintainable and a Model-View-Controller seperation that is much more clear than JavaJSF or Angular. (okok these aren't quite the same beasts I know)

I do think that this one man shop brilliance, by Igor Polevoy, does need a bit of a community process for next features, it does have support groups on google and elsewhere. It really would be a boon to have a built in user mgmt system with authentication and session scope storage. But other than that, its one heck of a ride to use this. It feels... like a summer breeze on a hot day.  Like a giant load of complexity we all thought was normal and needed is just... absent.

Kudos to JavaLite for doing the amazing. Like most great things, it was done by a single coder fed up with the crap. great job.