Introducing Aerie
George Malamidis, January 2nd, 2007Aerie is a Groovy fronted Java Web Application Framework.
Aerie is MVC without without the M in that it does not involve the Model tier of the Model-View-Controller paradigm.
The aim of Aerie is to simplify and standardize the Controller and View aspects of Java web application development.
We recently set up Aerie’s new home on Google Code.
Thanks for giving Aerie a spin. It’s really easy to setup and get started with. You can download it here and read the - incomplete (working on it…) - user guide.
Please keep in mind that these are early steps in Aerie’s life, so expect it to be a bit rough around the edges.
Thanks for dropping aerie [at] nutrun.com a line with what you like or don’t about Aerie.
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:14 am
Looks interesting, in your mind, is there a reason to use Aerie instead of Grails?
January 3rd, 2007 at 9:54 am
Even though I cannot stress enough that Aerie is not intended to be used ‘instead of Grails’, there are a number of differences:
Aerie in not Full Stack, as it does not deal with the Model tier of MVC.
Whereas Grails sometimes acts as ‘glue’ for different Java technologies, Aerie attempts to simplify and standardize the web tier of Java/Groovy based web applications.
From the Grails website:
‘Grails aims to bring the “coding by convention” paradigm to Groovy. It’s an open-source web application framework that leverages the Groovy language and complements Java Web development. You can use Grails as a standalone development environment that hides all configuration details or integrate your Java business logic.’
Aerie’s description is:
‘Aerie attempts to simplify the Controller and View aspects of the MVC paradigm in Java based web applications. The key aims of Aerie are: Simplicity, Clarity, Transparency, Consistency and a natural approach to Test Driven Development throughout.’
Aerie tries to minimize the effort spent on the web tier of an Application so that focus can be dedicated to Modeling the Application’s Domain.
As you can see, the philosophies behind the two frameworks are fairly different and, if there had to be a choice, it should be based on a specific application’s needs.
Hope this helps.