If you’ve never come across Struts, the de facto Java web framework, and were wondering what it is about, then Chuck Caveness (author of O’Reilly book ‘Programming Jakarta Struts’) gives an excellent overview of the features and benefits in this article on the OnJava.com site.
This article doesn’t mention the future of Struts and the fact that Java Server Faces is to become the standard web framework bundled with the rest of the specifications for Java EE 5, or that Craig McClanahan, one of the main developers of Struts, is involved in the JSR spec for JSF as one of the spec leads. This will undoubedly take some focus from Struts. Struts Shale is where the future of Struts is likely to be (Struts 2.x), which is Struts ontop of JSF, using JSF as the core, and adding to it lessons learnt from Struts.