Yet another framework?

I was thinking a bit more about my post on web frameworks and thought I would see what exactly happened to the Shale proposal. Having found the site, it appears as though it seems to be moving along at a nice pace in the background. Proposed as Struts 2, it has little if anything to do with the current Struts architecture (it’s based on JSF) and will probably become its own Jakarta project. That would make it 4 java web frameworks from Apache – Struts, Tapestry, Turbine and now this one. Choice is good, but aren’t they overdoing this just a little? Which horse do you back to make sure that your skill set is relevant in the future?

I heard a comment that one of the most desirable abilities of a programmer is knowing what’s out there and understanding which technology to apply in a given situation. I have a feeling that’s going to become harder than it already is. A great directory resource for open source frameworks and components broken down by category is available at java-source.net. Good luck evaluating them… And that doesn’t even cover any commercial options.

There’s a quick overview of what Shale covers here.