[SourPatch]

Those libraries exist. See netty, webbit.

[hendershot]

Yup. Play is built on top of Netty and adds value so my point is why not build it as a re-usable library (or set of libs) vs a Framework, it's really not any more difficult.

[swah]

I enjoyed the ideas on http://johannesbrodwall.com/2010/03/08/why-and-how-to-use-je... for similar reasons.