[mosburger]

I've never gotten a chance to try out Play, I'm no longer doing any JVM stuff... but back when I was a Java guy, my favorite java web framework was Stripes: http://www.stripesframework.org/display/stripes/Home

I've never really understood why Stripes hasn't "caught on." It's simplicity is wonderful.

[stickfigure]

Stripes was pretty much subsumed by JAX-RS. There are a few rough edges surrounding html rendering (thus microframeworks like Htmleasy) but for the most part, Stripes is no longer necessary.

Most of the history of Java web frameworks focused on ways to make form processing easier. Nobody (sane) does html form processing anymore. The "framework" needs to be little more than a way to render html templates and an rpc mechanism.