Anyone used Lift much? Need a web framework recommendation

[Russell Dunphy]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of trying to choose a scala web framework for a new project at work (or deciding to stick with Rails for the front-end and use Scala only for the backend). Can anyone recommend one in particular? 

For some reason I keep on getting drawn back to Lift, but every so often I take a look at the sort of code you're expected to write to get it to work and it looks like I've just vomited nonsense all over the screen. The idea of it seems potentially very powerful but it seems to have been put together by a bunch of people who just don't care about simplicity / readability. Documentation is also very poor if it exists at all.

I'm kind of in a bit of a bubble so could use some advice from an outside perspective.

Thanks,

Russell

--
Russell Dunphy | @rsslldnphy | rsslldnphy.com

[Matt Russell]

Hi Russell,

I've tinkered with Lift a little. It did have some very cool features for doing server-push stuff, but I didn't find it particularly simple or intuitive.

I've heard good things about Play (http://www.playframework.org/) and the demos I've seen make it look very approachable.

-- Matt

[Tommaso Galleri]

The typesafe stack includes Play!, so if you do not need some of the features in which Lift excels, I would probably go for Play!.

http://typesafe.com/stack

 

Tommaso

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[Russell Dunphy]

Thanks Matt, I've had a look at Play too but basically discarded it after having lots of difficulty even getting it running (to be fair to Play I was trying to get it running as part of the typesafe stack and I've heard other people have had problems with this). I figured that if I was going to have the overhead of learning a new framework it might as well be completely new (with all the potential benefits and dangers you'd expect) rather than just the same thing. However I'm starting to doubt whether any of the Scala web-frameworks are mature enough to be a sensible choice for work rather than as a hobby.

Russell

[Aaron Pritzlaff]

Hi Russell,

Having looked briefly into both Lift and Play, I personally prefer the latter. I haven't used either in anger, however, but I do find Play to have less of a learning curve, and it does seem to complete on its promise to enable the common things to be done easily.

Let me know how you get on and what you decide to go with!

Best,

Aaron

[Matt Russell]

Just as an aside, there's a new book "Play for Scala" come out under early access very recently on Manning. I've bought it but haven't started reading yet ;-)

   http://www.manning.com/hilton/ 

-- Matt

[Aaron Pritzlaff]

May I be the first to add myself to the queue of people asking you to borrow it once you've read it? ;-)