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I am choosing a Scala web framework. Among frameworks I am considering are Play, Scalatra and Lift. In the project I am preparing for, security is important. However, web security is a blurry subject for me, and I would like my framework to handle it to a reasonable extent. I seem to be drawn to Play.
I am not asking what is the most secure framework (according to ads – Lift), but, rather, do Scala frameworks handle security for me, and how do they compare in that respect? I don't want to solely rely on my knowledge to make the web-app secure.
I'd vote for Liftweb http://seventhings.liftweb.net/security
The major difference to other frameworks (and especially to java's, like Spring) is what one may call "default behavior". For example, while coding, you can forget to "escape", some html attribute. In a bad framework you'll get errors with corrupt html and security holes. In a good framework you'll have double-escape or an error.
A full list of examples can actually be read in link. What personally I love Lift for is it's statefulness, Scala bindings to HTML like
"#myHtmlNode li div [onclick]" #> ajaxInvoke(...scala code here...)
In the code above, you'll be 100% sure that no one will have access to the contents of ajaxInvoke except for those users you sent the page yourself. And separation of the logic and the view is a relief, of course.
To answer my own question, I have to learn this stuff, no one is going to do it for me. There's OWASP cheatsheets; and also OWASP Enterprise Security API or ESAPI. ESAPI looks promising, though I haven't used it yet.
Is there a bare-bones Scala web framework? I basically need the essential features such as:
Routing.
GET/POST/PUT parameter handling.
A simple templating engine (content substitution based).
Serialization (JSON, YAML)
I don't like Lift as it does too much for me, as I would like complete control over the generated HTML, meaning that I want to be able to write 100% of the HTML/CSS/JS code.
Is there such a framework? Or is it possible to use Lift in a way that no HTML is generated behind the scenes? Or would I be better of writing a normal servlet?
Perhaps you'd like something like Scalatra or Unfiltered? On a separate note, you need not give up any control of your HTML/CSS/JS in a Lift app if you don't want to.
You can just use Lift to generate services, such as REST ones, is that more or less what you are looking for? http://www.assembla.com/spaces/liftweb/wiki/REST_Web_Services
If we take a look at What Scala web-frameworks are available? none of them have a great simple templating engine, at least to me it seems that way. SweetScala seems the closest though http://code.google.com/p/sweetscala/wiki/GettingStarted
Peter gave a great answer... I'll expand on it a little.
Lift gives you a ton of control and access to raw HTTP requests as well as providing a ton of abstractions on top of the HTTP level. It's your choice on how much or how little you want Lift to do.
You can built a REST-based application using Lift's RestHelper. See http://simply.liftweb.net/index-Chapter-5.html The advantage that Lift's RestHelper gives you over most MVC/Routing based approaches is type-safety and access control at the very edge of your application. But using Scala's pattern matching extractors, you can insure that parameters delivered to the business logic of your application have already been materialized and checked for access control. Further, Lift's REST support will be as concise or more concise than other web frameworks.
In terms of Lift's HTML handling, you have a ton of control over the creation of the HTML, as long as you want to generate HTML as a valid DOM rather than as a series of Strings.
Most web frameworks force you to emit Strings when you're composing HTML. It's up to the developer to properly HTML-escape Strings. It's up to the developer to make sure that closing tags line up correctly. With Lift, you get this kind of thing for free.
You can serve HTML from Lift apps in MVC style. See https://github.com/dpp/hoisted (this is the code that powers http://liftweb.net)
In the "standard" configuration of Lift apps, Lift does some post-processing of the HTML if, and only if, you use certain construct. So, if you put a <head> tag in the body, the HTML page, Lift will take the contents of that <head> tag and move it to the head section of the page. If you include calls to Lift's Comet support, Lift will insert JavaScript on the page to do long polling. But these features are optional and they only happen if you use certain features in Lift.
I hope this helps you understand the benefits of using Lift.
Two more frameworks for you to consider:
Play is a simple REST framework that is gaining in popularity, and has a nice Scala interface. Its templates translate relatively simply into Scala functions. As of a couple months ago there were difficulties with using JSON packages (like lift-json) that unpack data into case classes because Play has a custom classloader for rapid development. Not sure if this issue is resolved. The Scala company Typesafe uses Play for their site. Play integrates with Akka, and one of the Akka lead developers, Viktor Klang, recommended Play a while back.
A little further off the beaten track, there is Spray. I can't speak to the details, but the Wiki looks intriguing. To my eyes, Spray looks to be elegantly designed around Akka integration. I don't think it comes with a templating engine, but it would probably be possible to interface with Scalate (see the mailing list discussion).
Not a Scala framework per-se, but I've had good luck with Jetty+JAX-RS+Scala+Freemarker. These are all pretty heavily battle-tested technologies, and there's no problems with Scala integration. A small shim is necessary to adapt Freemarker to understand Scala collections and properties, but nothing challenging.
Scalatra is pretty bare bones with the scala goodness. Easy to configure, easy to handle Bare HTTP stuff. It is similar to sinatra of scala.
Scalatra also has good Maven support and coexists well with traditional java servlets.
The modern Scala web framework are: Play (on Akka HTTP), Scalatra (Akka Actors) and Finatra.
https://www.reddit.com/r/scala/comments/743zjv/web_framework/
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I've just started learning Scala, and the first thing I'm going to implement is a tiny web application. I've been using Erlang for the last year to implement server-side software, but I've never wrote web applications before. It will be a great experience.
Are there web-frameworks for Scala except for Lift?
Don't get me wrong, Lift looks awesome. I just want to know how many frameworks there are so that I can then choose between them. It's always a good to have a choice, but I the only thing I found was Lift.
I'm very interested in Scala, but I have not used it yet, so with that caveat, the frameworks I am aware of that are not mentioned in HRJ's answer (Lift, Sweet, Slinky) are:
Scalatra, previously Step (on GitHub)
Play 2 (on GitHub)
Pinky
I wrote a blog post about this.
To summarise, some of the options are:
Lift
Sweet
Slinky
I finally found that none were suitable for me, and developed my own little "framework". (It is not open-source yet).
I like Lift ;-)
Play is my second choice for Scala-friendly web frameworks.
Wicket is my third choice.
Following is a dump of frameworks. It doesn't mean I actually used them:
Coeus. A traditional MVC web framework for Scala.
Unfiltered. A toolkit for servicing HTTP requests in Scala.
Uniscala Granite.
Gardel
Mondo
Amore. A Scala port of the Ruby web framework Sinatra
Scales XML. Flexible approach to XML handling and a simplified way of interacting with XML.
Belt. A Rack-like interface for web applications built on top of Scalaz-HTTP
Frank. Web application DSL built on top of Scalaz/Belt
MixedBits. A framework for the Scala progamming language to help build web sites
Circumflex. Unites several self-contained open source projects for application development using the Scala programming language.
Scala Webmachine. Port of Basho's webmachine in Scala, a REST-based system for building web applications
Bowler. A RESTful, multi-channel ready Scala web framework
Try Play Framework, which also support Scala.
One very interesting web framework with commercial deployment is Scalatra, inspired by Ruby's Sinatra. Here's an InfoQ article about it.
I find Unfiltered very interesting https://github.com/unfiltered/unfiltered.
It's mentioned in IttayD's list.
Here is a presentation about it http://unfiltered.lessis.me/#0
and the video http://code.technically.us/post/942531598/doug-tangren-presents-the-unfiltered-toolkit-for
Also here there is an article with more info http://code.technically.us/post/998251172/holding-the-parameter
It must be noted that there is also a considerable interest in Wicket and Scala. Wicket fits Scala suprisingly well. If you want to take advantage of the very mature Wicket project and its ecosystem (extensions) plus the concise syntax and productivity advantage of Scala, this one may be for you!
See also:
Some prosa
Presentation
Some experience with Wicket and Scala
Announcments with reference to the project for the glue code to bind Scala closures to models
Play is pretty sweet.
It is now production ready. It incorporates: a cool template framework,automatic reloading of source files upon safe, a composable action system, akka awesomeness, etc.
Its part of the Typesafe Stack.
Having used it for two projects, I can say that it works pretty smoothly and it should be something to consider next time you are looking to learn new web frameworks.
I tend to use JAX-RS using Jersey (you can write nice resource beans in Scala, Java or Groovy) to write RESTul web applications. Then I use Scalate for the rendering the views using one of the various template languages (JADE, Scaml, Ssp (Scala Server Pages), Mustache, etc.).
There's a new web framework, called Scala Web Pages. From the site:
Target Audience
The Scala Pages web framework is likely to appeal to web programmers who come from a Java background and want to program web applications in Scala. The emphasis is on OOP rather than functional programming.
Characteristics And Features
Adheres to model-view-controller paradigm
Text-based template engine
Simple syntax: $variable and <?scp-instruction?>
Encoding/content detection, able to handle international text encodings
Snippets instead of custom tags
URL Rewriting
Prikrutil, I think we're on the same boat. I also come to Scala from Erlang. I like Nitrogen a lot so I decided to created a Scala web framework inspired by it.
Take a look at Xitrum. Its doc is quite extensive. From README:
Xitrum is an async and clustered Scala web framework and web server on top of Netty and Hazelcast:
It fills the gap between Scalatra and Lift: more powerful than Scalatra and easier to use than Lift. You can easily create both RESTful APIs and postbacks. Xitrum is controller-first like Scalatra, not view-first like Lift.
Annotation is used for URL routes, in the spirit of JAX-RS. You don't have to declare all routes in a single place.
Typesafe, in the spirit of Scala.
Async, in the spirit of Netty.
Sessions can be stored in cookies or clustered Hazelcast.
jQuery Validation is integrated for browser side and server side validation.
i18n using GNU gettext, which means unlike most other solutions, both singular and plural forms are supported.
Conditional GET using ETag.
Hazelcast also gives:
In-process and clustered cache, you don't need separate cache servers.
In-process and clustered Comet, you can scale Comet to multiple web servers.
Follow the tutorial for a quick start.
There's also Pinky, which used to be on bitbucket but got transfered to github.
By the way, github is a great place to search for Scala projects, as there's a lot being put there.
I'd like to add my own efforts to this list. You can find out more information here:
brzy framework
It's in early development and I'm still working on it aggressively. It includes features like:
A focus on simplicity and extensibility.
Integrated build tool.
Modular design; some initial modules includes support for scalate, email, jms, jpa, squeryl, cassandra, cron services and more.
Simple RESTful controllers and actions.
Any and all feedback is much appreciated.
UPDATE: 2011-09-078, I just posted a major update to version 0.9.1. There's more info at http://brzy.org which includes a screencast.
Both Sweet and Slinky seem to be unmaintanted for about a year. Sweet Maven repo sweetsoftwaredesign.com is dead so there's even no way to download dependencies.
Note: Spiffy is outdated.
<plug>
Spiffy:
is written in Scala
uses the fantastic Akka library and actors to scale
uses servlet API 3.0 for asynchronous request handling
is modular (replacing components is straight forward)
uses DSLs to cut down on code where you don't want it
supports Scalate and Freemarker for templating
Spiffy is a web framework using Scala, Akka (a Scala actor implementation), and the Java Servlet 3.0 API. It makes use of the the async interface and aims to provide a massively parallel and scalable environment for web applications. Spiffy's various components are all based on the idea that they need to be independent minimalistic modules that do small amounts of work very quickly and hand off the request to the next component in the pipeline. After the last component is done processing the request it signals the servlet container by "completing" the request and sending it back to the client.
https://github.com/mardambey/spiffy
</plug>
You could also try Context. It was designed to be a Java-framework but I have successfully used it with Scala also without difficulties. It is a component based framework and has similar properties as Lift or Tapestry.
I have stumbled upon your question a few weeks back, but since then also learned about Circumflex. This is a nice, minimal framework that is therefore easy to learn, and it has pretty good documentation available as well.
Beside it's minimal-ness, it also claims to work well with other libraries and lets you use your own implementation of things when you need it.
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I've just started learning Scala, and the first thing I'm going to implement is a tiny web application. I've been using Erlang for the last year to implement server-side software, but I've never wrote web applications before. It will be a great experience.
Are there web-frameworks for Scala except for Lift?
Don't get me wrong, Lift looks awesome. I just want to know how many frameworks there are so that I can then choose between them. It's always a good to have a choice, but I the only thing I found was Lift.
I'm very interested in Scala, but I have not used it yet, so with that caveat, the frameworks I am aware of that are not mentioned in HRJ's answer (Lift, Sweet, Slinky) are:
Scalatra, previously Step (on GitHub)
Play 2 (on GitHub)
Pinky
I wrote a blog post about this.
To summarise, some of the options are:
Lift
Sweet
Slinky
I finally found that none were suitable for me, and developed my own little "framework". (It is not open-source yet).
I like Lift ;-)
Play is my second choice for Scala-friendly web frameworks.
Wicket is my third choice.
Following is a dump of frameworks. It doesn't mean I actually used them:
Coeus. A traditional MVC web framework for Scala.
Unfiltered. A toolkit for servicing HTTP requests in Scala.
Uniscala Granite.
Gardel
Mondo
Amore. A Scala port of the Ruby web framework Sinatra
Scales XML. Flexible approach to XML handling and a simplified way of interacting with XML.
Belt. A Rack-like interface for web applications built on top of Scalaz-HTTP
Frank. Web application DSL built on top of Scalaz/Belt
MixedBits. A framework for the Scala progamming language to help build web sites
Circumflex. Unites several self-contained open source projects for application development using the Scala programming language.
Scala Webmachine. Port of Basho's webmachine in Scala, a REST-based system for building web applications
Bowler. A RESTful, multi-channel ready Scala web framework
Try Play Framework, which also support Scala.
One very interesting web framework with commercial deployment is Scalatra, inspired by Ruby's Sinatra. Here's an InfoQ article about it.
I find Unfiltered very interesting https://github.com/unfiltered/unfiltered.
It's mentioned in IttayD's list.
Here is a presentation about it http://unfiltered.lessis.me/#0
and the video http://code.technically.us/post/942531598/doug-tangren-presents-the-unfiltered-toolkit-for
Also here there is an article with more info http://code.technically.us/post/998251172/holding-the-parameter
It must be noted that there is also a considerable interest in Wicket and Scala. Wicket fits Scala suprisingly well. If you want to take advantage of the very mature Wicket project and its ecosystem (extensions) plus the concise syntax and productivity advantage of Scala, this one may be for you!
See also:
Some prosa
Presentation
Some experience with Wicket and Scala
Announcments with reference to the project for the glue code to bind Scala closures to models
Play is pretty sweet.
It is now production ready. It incorporates: a cool template framework,automatic reloading of source files upon safe, a composable action system, akka awesomeness, etc.
Its part of the Typesafe Stack.
Having used it for two projects, I can say that it works pretty smoothly and it should be something to consider next time you are looking to learn new web frameworks.
I tend to use JAX-RS using Jersey (you can write nice resource beans in Scala, Java or Groovy) to write RESTul web applications. Then I use Scalate for the rendering the views using one of the various template languages (JADE, Scaml, Ssp (Scala Server Pages), Mustache, etc.).
There's a new web framework, called Scala Web Pages. From the site:
Target Audience
The Scala Pages web framework is likely to appeal to web programmers who come from a Java background and want to program web applications in Scala. The emphasis is on OOP rather than functional programming.
Characteristics And Features
Adheres to model-view-controller paradigm
Text-based template engine
Simple syntax: $variable and <?scp-instruction?>
Encoding/content detection, able to handle international text encodings
Snippets instead of custom tags
URL Rewriting
Prikrutil, I think we're on the same boat. I also come to Scala from Erlang. I like Nitrogen a lot so I decided to created a Scala web framework inspired by it.
Take a look at Xitrum. Its doc is quite extensive. From README:
Xitrum is an async and clustered Scala web framework and web server on top of Netty and Hazelcast:
It fills the gap between Scalatra and Lift: more powerful than Scalatra and easier to use than Lift. You can easily create both RESTful APIs and postbacks. Xitrum is controller-first like Scalatra, not view-first like Lift.
Annotation is used for URL routes, in the spirit of JAX-RS. You don't have to declare all routes in a single place.
Typesafe, in the spirit of Scala.
Async, in the spirit of Netty.
Sessions can be stored in cookies or clustered Hazelcast.
jQuery Validation is integrated for browser side and server side validation.
i18n using GNU gettext, which means unlike most other solutions, both singular and plural forms are supported.
Conditional GET using ETag.
Hazelcast also gives:
In-process and clustered cache, you don't need separate cache servers.
In-process and clustered Comet, you can scale Comet to multiple web servers.
Follow the tutorial for a quick start.
There's also Pinky, which used to be on bitbucket but got transfered to github.
By the way, github is a great place to search for Scala projects, as there's a lot being put there.
I'd like to add my own efforts to this list. You can find out more information here:
brzy framework
It's in early development and I'm still working on it aggressively. It includes features like:
A focus on simplicity and extensibility.
Integrated build tool.
Modular design; some initial modules includes support for scalate, email, jms, jpa, squeryl, cassandra, cron services and more.
Simple RESTful controllers and actions.
Any and all feedback is much appreciated.
UPDATE: 2011-09-078, I just posted a major update to version 0.9.1. There's more info at http://brzy.org which includes a screencast.
Both Sweet and Slinky seem to be unmaintanted for about a year. Sweet Maven repo sweetsoftwaredesign.com is dead so there's even no way to download dependencies.
Note: Spiffy is outdated.
<plug>
Spiffy:
is written in Scala
uses the fantastic Akka library and actors to scale
uses servlet API 3.0 for asynchronous request handling
is modular (replacing components is straight forward)
uses DSLs to cut down on code where you don't want it
supports Scalate and Freemarker for templating
Spiffy is a web framework using Scala, Akka (a Scala actor implementation), and the Java Servlet 3.0 API. It makes use of the the async interface and aims to provide a massively parallel and scalable environment for web applications. Spiffy's various components are all based on the idea that they need to be independent minimalistic modules that do small amounts of work very quickly and hand off the request to the next component in the pipeline. After the last component is done processing the request it signals the servlet container by "completing" the request and sending it back to the client.
https://github.com/mardambey/spiffy
</plug>
You could also try Context. It was designed to be a Java-framework but I have successfully used it with Scala also without difficulties. It is a component based framework and has similar properties as Lift or Tapestry.
I have stumbled upon your question a few weeks back, but since then also learned about Circumflex. This is a nice, minimal framework that is therefore easy to learn, and it has pretty good documentation available as well.
Beside it's minimal-ness, it also claims to work well with other libraries and lets you use your own implementation of things when you need it.
I've been having an agruement with a friend that Mason (Perl) is not a framework, but a templating language. I feel Mason for Perl does what JSP does for Java (as an analogy, not pure technical comparison). From what I know, JSP is not a framework and I feel neither is Mason. When I looked up wikipedia Mason (Perl), I see that the main site says it is a web application framework written in Perl while the discussion page contests it.
Any pointers on why it is/ it is not a framework?
Update based on comments from ysth:
For a framework, I feel it should at least make db access easy, manage sessions, basic security that a webapp would need, templating and code reuse (or libraries that make basic tasks easy).
Mason is an 'M' short of being a MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework. It provides extensive rendering (View) features, which is why people think of Mason as being a templating language. However it also provides quite a few dispatch mechanisms (epsecially in the form of dhandlers), and control mechanisms (which fit naturally into autohandlers).
A few years ago I wrote an on-line tutorial (in Mason) to show off some of these features. It's optimised for full-screen display, and needs javascript enabled.
What Mason doesn't give you is a database abstraction layer, so you have to bring your own Model.
To the best of my knowledge amazon.com is written in Mason, along with many other sites.
If you enjoy working with Mason, but you'd like to have a Model, more toys, and a pony, then you may consider looking at Jifty as a web application framework.
A templating system would be something like HTML::Template, that is, a module that only does templating.
I feel that Mason does more, it has somehow a routing mechanism, it provides argument handling though %ARGS, intialisations through %INIT.
It also provides interfaces to mod_perl, CGI...
Now, it does not talk to the database, as if you want a clean way to do it, you'll have to use Class::DBI, DBIx::Perlish or one of the other hundred perl modules that does object mapping, or whatever else...
It is not an Model-View-Controller type of framework, it is probably closer to PHP than Ruby on Rails for example (and just as bad from what I have seen of it).
Can't answer the question to whether HTML::Mason is or isn't a framework without looking at it but I'm always happy with the following definition....
"a framework calls your program whereas your program calls a library"
Looking at Embedded Perl in HTML with Mason view of its competition, I'd say it is a template language. Otherwise Catalyst and Maypole would be on the list. Also, I think I read somewhere that you can use Mason as the View portion in a Catalyst application.
I guess I can see where you can use it like a framework, but it seems to be more complete if you view it as a template language.
Mason alone is not a framework it's just a template system BUT with some very cool features. It's got it's own structure and you can embed perl code very easely in it also it's got cache support. I've seen people who use Mason alone for developing a large application, but I guess it works better in an MVC framework.
Take care!
The following definition of a framework is taken from the Gamma book on Design Patterns. "A framework is a set of cooperating classes that make up a reusable design for a specific class of software." Mason, by that definition, is a framework. An MVC framework is only one type of framework.
HTML::Mason is what frameworks want to become when they get older. With HTML::Mason you get:
a dispatcher
templating
caching
logging
extremely flexible modularization
It was designed for high performance multi-tiered web applications, not for pleasing the fans of design patterns borrowed from desktop programming (such as MVC was).
Depends of your definition of framework.
You can apply name framework to any library if it does more than one thing.