Now it is time to start over with the real work. In this post (part III) we will look at the candidates in more details. I have choosen to examine three of the most popular JSF component libraries today.
Preparation and preface
In preperation for the analysis I did a checkout from the project repositories. After that I setup the local build and made shure, that all projects could be compiled and packaged locally.
The review itself was done by some tools. One is the already mentioned msg java measuring station (JMP). The second one is XDepend which I was thankfully given a license from it's creator (thanks for that!!). I am not going to publish the complete reports (If the project leads are interested, I will hand them out to them, of course. Let me know!). The goal of this series is to provide a brief overview of the projects and highlight some hotspots. This is not going to be a beauty contest nor am I going to bash anybody with this. It should give my readers a brief understanding about static code analysis and the typical findings.
The NCSS results from the JMP and XDepend vary a bit in some places. This is because of the fact, that XDepend does a more complete analysis than the JMP does. Further more the configuration of the JMP is not that straight forward. This gets even worser, if you have lot's of subprojects (e.g. RichFaces, one project per component...). Therefore I decided to focus on the core projects with the JMP analysis and do a complete analysis with XDepend.
PrimeFaces
PrimeFaces is an open source component suite for Java Server Faces featuring 70+ Ajax powered rich set of JSF components. Additional TouchFaces module features a UI kit for developing mobile web applications.
It is a quite fresh and new library which grows very quickly. It caught my attention cause I am using FacesTrace since some time.
With every result I publish here about primefaces, you should have in mind, that his is a SNAPSHOT release and not intendet for productive use. Therefore it may not be representative.
Basics:
Version: 1.0.0-SNAPSHOT (readonly checkout at 27.11.09)
Jar Name: primefaces-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
Jar Size: 1,60 MB (1.682.956 Bytes)
Dependent libraries: 30 with a total size of 7,56 MB (7.929.734 Bytes)
JMP included subprojects: complete primefaces-read-only
XDepend jars: primefaces-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
Size (JMP):
NCSS - Lines of code: 8340
Number of packages: 86
Number of classes (w/o inner classes): 160
Number of functions: 796
Metrics (Xdepend):
Number of ByteCode instructions: 74741
Number of lines of code: 15784
Number of lines of comment: 245
Percentage comment: 1%
Number of jars: 1
Number of classes: 306
Number of types: 324
Number of abstract classes: 3
Number of interfaces: 17
Number of value types: 0
Number of exception classes: 0
Number of annotation classes: 0
Number of enumerations classes: 1
Number of generic type definitions: 0
Number of generic method definitions: 0
Percentage of public types: 99,07%
Percentage of public methods: 85,04%
Percentage of classes with at least one public field: 26,54%
RichFaces
RichFaces is a component library for JSF and an advanced framework for easily integrating AJAX capabilities into business applications.
It is one of the more mature libraries around. Mature in terms of age. Have seen it in a couple of projects and it is the favorite implementation for some of my employer's customers.
This is the latest GA version of RichFaces.
Basics:
Version: 3.3.3 (readonly checkout at 27.11.09)
Jar Name: richfaces-api-3.3.3-SNAPSHOT.jar and richfaces-impl-3.3.3-SNAPSHOT.jar
Jar Size: 1,65 MB (1.737.826 Bytes)
Dependent libraries: 20 with a total size of 4,50 MB (4.726.588 Bytes)
JMP included subprojects: framework/impl and framework/api
XDepend jars: richfaces-api-3.3.3-SNAPSHOT.jar and richfaces-impl-3.3.3-SNAPSHOT.jar
Size (JMP):
NCSS - Lines of code: 9186
Number of packages: 21
Number of classes (w/o inner classes): 225
Number of functions: 1526
Metrics (Xdepend):
Number of ByteCode instructions: 166694
Number of lines of code: 35227
Number of lines of comment: 34938
Percentage comment: 49%
Number of jars: 2
Number of classes: 790
Number of types: 938
Number of abstract classes: 69
Number of interfaces: 133
Number of value types: 0
Number of exception classes: 11
Number of annotation classes: 1
Number of enumerations classes: 15
Number of generic type definitions: 0
Number of generic method definitions: 0
Percentage of public types: 74,09%
Percentage of public methods: 74,73%
Percentage of classes with at least one public field: 9,49%
ICEfaces
ICEfaces as a leading open source Ajax framework, ICEfaces is more than a Ajax JSF component library, it's an J2EE Ajax framework for developing and deploying rich enterprise applications (REAs).
To be honest, I have not seen it in the wild too much. It was suggested to include this via a fellow twitter follower and I thought three is better than two :)
This is the latest GA version of ICEFaces.
Basics:
Version: 1.7.1 (readonly checkout at 27.11.09)
Jar Name: icefaces.jar and icefaces-comps.jar
Jar Size: 2,64 MB (2.770.861 Bytes)
Dependent libraries: 42 with a total size of 10,4 MB (10.993.491 Bytes)
JMP included subprojects: icefaces/core and icefaces/component
XDepend jars: icefaces.jar and icefaces-comps.jar
Size (JMP):
NCSS - Lines of code: 38109
Number of packages: 67
Number of classes (w/o inner classes): 521
Number of functions: 5606
Metrics (Xdepend):
Number of ByteCode instructions: 177269
Number of lines of code: 41710
Number of lines of comment: 16161
Percentage comment: 27%
Number of jars: 2
Number of classes: 664
Number of types: 714
Number of abstract classes: 29
Number of interfaces: 50
Number of value types: 0
Number of exception classes: 5
Number of annotation classes: 0
Number of enumerations classes: 0
Number of generic type definitions: 0
Number of generic method definitions: 0
Percentage of public types: 82,77%
Percentage of public methods: 82,52%
Percentage of classes with at least one public field: 14,15%
This is all for now. Part IV will cover the details for checkstyle, findbugs and simian for all candidates. Stay tuned.
