Today I'm delighted to announce that I've started development on Action, a new open-source web framework. As its name implies, Action builds upon the action-based model espoused by several web frameworks, most notably Struts and WebWork.
What? Another web framework? Why do we need another one, much less one that is based on Struts? Action differentiates itself from those other frameworks is that it is designed from the ground up to exploit modern web development practices, including Ajax, HTML 5, and semantic web technologies.
Development of Action has been underway for several months and I am nearing the point of a 4.1-Milestone release. (The decision to version the first release as 4.1 will become apparent later.)
Much as with all new frameworks, there will be a slight learning curve to become proficient in Action. To help smooth out that curve, I've already been working with Manning to publish a definitive guide to Action entitled Action in Action. The first MEAP chapters of that book will become available in concert with the 4.1 GA release of the framework.
As it turns out, the design of Action makes it quite portable to .NET. Consequently, I have also been working in parallel on the .NET version of Action, known as NAction. A corresponding edition of NAction in Action will also be available from Manning upon the release of the NAction framework.
On a technical note, the Ajax portion of the Action framework will leverage a RESTful API driven by JSON resources. I'm particularly proud of a custom extension of the Jackson JSON Processor that will power the REST/JSON features of Action. More details of this component and how to develop with it will be featured in the upcoming Action Jackson in Action, also to be published by Manning.
It should also be noted that due to some clever optimizations in memory and processor utilization, Action can run with ease on constrained devices such as the iPad, Blackberry Storm, or Commodore 64.
