Where Does JSF Fit in the Big Picture?
JSF may not be a good fit for all web applications. If you develop a web site where the dynamic aspects are limited to things like pulling content from a database, generating dynamic navigation menus, adding dynamic “cookie trails” to the pages, and other features that just make it easier to maintain the site content and simplify access to different parts of the site, JSF may be overkill. The best fit for JSF is a true web application—a web site with a lot of user interaction—rather than a web site with some dynamic content. A simple dynamic web site is probably easier to implement and maintain using only servlets and JSP, or even just JSP and the JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL).
JSF does not necessarily replace current technologies. It’s a complement that brings structure and maintainability to the application user interface. The following sections describe how JSF fits with some established Java web application technologies.
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