[Web-SIG] ANN: Web framework map wiki

[Iwan Vosloo]

Hi there.

About a year ago I mentioned on this list that I am doing a survey of
80 web framework (and related) projects.  (It forms part of my Masters
dissertation.) Some people here have expressed interest in the
results.

I've put up a wiki with the results at: http://www.reahl.org/wfmwiki.

It would be great if you could join in - especially the serious web
framework developers.

I include some text from the introduction below.  

Regards
 -- Iwan Vosloo

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Introduction
============

There are many web frameworks available at the moment - new ones pop
up very regularly. It takes quite a bit of effort to figure out what
the essence of a new framework is.

Biologists are faced with a similar problem when they discover a new
exotic animal. But they have a valuable tool to their disposal. They
have a taxonomy of different kinds of animals. When a new animal is
discovered, it is classified according to this taxonomy. This act of
classification already attaches a lot of known knowledge about the new
animal - a big aid in getting to grips with "yet another animal".

This wiki is an attempt at creating a similar tool for people who are
interested in studying and comparing web frameworks.

The task of keeping an up-to-date and useful map of the web framework
world is a little daunting if you think about it: The world is a big
place, and there are very many web frameworks in it. New web
frameworks pop up regularly. Careful study of each of these takes a
lot of time and effort. Each web framework designer seems to invent
particular terminology that may or may not mean the same as the
terminology used by others. And, of course, these things keep changing
and growing.

But it is precisely in such an environment that a map of sorts is
useful. It gives structure: if you're working with a particular
framework, it often helps to know where it fits with the rest of the
world: to know its fundamental intention, strengths and
weaknesses. When you want to create a new one, a map can show what is
new and what is old-hat.

This wiki was created with the hope that others may find it useful and
that the interested parties can use it to collaborate and keep the web
framework map growing and useful.