---
title: Shale - The Next Struts
categories:
- work
content-tags:
- technology
- java
- programming
---

[David Geary][1], a fellow with a lot of Struts cred and a serious affection for JSF gave a repeat of his JavaOne talk on [Shale][2].  It was largely an introduction, a bit of sales pitch, and some Craig McClanahan hero worship (which I've been guilty of myself, of course).

David is a very knowledgeable guy, and is great at providing thoughtful answers to questions.  He's a dry speaker, though.  Nonetheless, the richness of content made the session worthwhile.  I was pleased to see him use the term "UI logic," as I have often met resistance (all logic belongs in the magic logic tier!) when I refer to "presentation logic."

He also did a great job of introducing [Commons Chain][3], which I recognized existed but needed to be reminded can serve as a valuable library in many contexts, not just within frameworks.

Finally, there was some hand-waving about AJaX support with "remote" commands being added to chains.  Encouraging talk, but nothing to see here, yet.

   [1]: http://www.jroller.com/page/dgeary
   [2]: /2005/03/21/shale.html
   [3]: http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/chain/
