Came across an interesting post via The Pragmatic Architect by Tim Fennell on Everyone and their dog is using Struts. He has a list of reasons why:
“Managers/developers are not aware of the alternatives to Struts”
I think most managers in corporate IT shops realize there’s options beyond Struts. At least the monster hype around JSF should have reached them.
“Struts is dominant so it must be the way to go”
This is a strong argument in it’s favor. Out of all the java web frameworks its still the leader despite the dustiness of age.
“Availability of developer who know Struts vs. perceived ramp up time for something else”
Again this is pretty accurate. Inertia is pretty difficult to overcome.
“Absence of books, articles etc. on alternatives”
I think frameworks like Webworks have become a bit more compelling after having books published on them. Pretty much other than Struts and JSF there aren’t any java web frameworks with much in the way of books.
“Alternatives are not “better enough” to warrant changing”
This is the single most compelling argument for me. There still isn’t a clear successor to Struts. JSF was supposed to be, but it hasn’t really happened yet, especially the 1.0 release. The other frameworks might be a lot better, but they haven’t really taken off so you’re going out on a limb that you’ll build apps that a few years later no one understands.
“It’s a corporate standard/other apps already use Struts”
Yuk, corporate standards. This can be dangerous. On the other hand I continue to see third party commercial Java apps that almost always have their web interface written in Struts. If we buy those apps it is nice to have developers who understand how they work.