JTools

The author of JTools (Jerry Jones) has to be credited with the concept behind WELD. Jerry was pioneering the use of template processing long before the rest of us - and before Jason Hunter publicly identified the problems with JSP.

JTools is a rich specialization of template processing. JTools is a lean variable substitution parser rather than a scripting language like Webmacro. The semantics for the web page designer are very easy (almost as easy as XMLC) and the Java programmer is empowered by an extensive API. It's only functional shortcoming is an that it doesn't provide a command interface.

The overwhelming problem with JTools is that it is not Open Source. The consequence of this is that the product is fairly opaque and not well documented. JTools may be easy enough to use but the version I was given to try was broken and all that was provided was a jar file (actually a zip of classes) and some code fragments as examples to help get me started. JTools obviously works - it has been used successfully by Jerry for several projects over many months. The problem was that Jerry wasn't around when I needed his help.

The broken version of JTools and my disappointment with Webmacro were the incentive and opportunity to look for a standard Open Source scripting language to do what both products try to do. This incident is a compelling reason for why Open Source is better than commercial software. The support folks for most vendors are not around when you really need them - but Open Source is always available.

Contents

Introduction

Alternative Solutions

JTools

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Modified: Thu Apr 13 09:15:56 EDT 2000