Webmacro

Jason Hunter recommends Webmacro. I normally put much confidence in what Jason says. He has had his finger on the pulse of server-side Java since Java came into existence, so it is hard to differ with his position. In this case I have to.

My evaluation of Webmacro (v0.89.1) was fairly dismal. New versions may have fixed the problems I encountered, but the basic problem with Webmacro is that they didn't use a standard language to do the parsing and substitution. There was no reason for them to invent a new scripting language instead of extending a standard. The amount of information that has to be encoded into the HTML is excessive, and Webmacro shows little understanding of the real issue at stake: can normal web page designers use it.

In spite of these problems, Webmacro may win out and become the preferred approach simply because Jason recommends it. If this happens, it will not be the first time that an inferior product gained undeserved mindshare just because of marketing (e.g. Mac vs. WINTEL).

Contents

Introduction

Alternative Solutions

Webmacro

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Modified: Wed Apr 19 06:31:24 EDT 2000