Announcing the lift web framework version 0.1.0

lift applications are written in Scala and XHTML (no XML needed), compile down to Java bytecode and run inside Java virtual machine-based Servlet containers such as Tomcat and Jetty.  lift applications are multi-threaded and perform as well as applications written in other Java web frameworks.

lift applications have a similar level of verbosity to TurboGears or Rails applications.  While Scala is a statically typed language, a developer rarely declares types in lift because the Scala compiler can infer the types based on parameter types and return types of functions and methods.  For example, finding all the name of all the users that are logged into the system:

User.findAll.filter{u => u.loggedIn}.map{u => u.firstname}.mkString("",",","")

Not a type declaration in sight, but Scala keeps things type safe.  The type safety extends to parameters in queries:

User.findAll(ByField(User.email, "user@foo.com")) // legal
User.findAll(ByField(User.email, 33)) // illegal -- compiler error

Lots of work by the compiler (and the compiler authors) means that you focus on the task at hand and the functional tests.

lift stresses security by binding all parameter requests without lots of work on the part of the developers.  For example:

<lift:form method="POST">{
  user.toForm
}
<lift:input submit="Edit" />
</lift:form>

<lift:form method="POST">
email: {user.email.toForm}<br />
lastname: {user.lastname.toForm}<br />
<lift:input submit="Edit" /></lift:form>

Will generate an input for for the User (there are ways to define the field order, the field types, etc.) and bind the resulting HTTP request back to the fields that were generated.  This means no worries about mass assignment or even worrying about mapping the HTTP POST back to the record's fields.  lift takes care of making sure that only the fields that were put in the form are the fields retrieved from the HTTP POST.

lift stresses developer productivity by providing simple ways of doing common tasks include Object-Relational Mapping (in the ActiveRecord style), Object-HTML mapping, automatic support for AJAX and Comet, Object-XML mapping, and much more.  Code in lift is as compact and expressive as TurboGears or Rails while being as powerful (e.g., multiple independent components in a page) as Seaside.

lift apps compile into WAR files that can be deployed and hot-deployed on app servers including Tomcat, Jetty, WebLogic, and WebSphere.

lift apps can call into and completely interoperate with existing Java frameworks and Java libraries include Hibernate and iBatis OR mapped classes, etc.

lift programs compile down to Java byte-code.  lift programs use very little reflection (a little on the OR mapper and a little during the construction of Controllers) so lift applications run as fast as any other Java applications.

You can see lift in action at http://liftweb.net and download the lift code from http://code.google.com/p/liftweb/

There are a lot of people that have helped make lift a 0.1.0 reality:

• Martin Odersky, Burak Emir (lots of coaching and feedback), Philipp Haller (Scala Actors), and the Scala team at LAMP.  These guys rule the universe.
• Philipp Schmidth for the excellent Maven stuff in lift.
• Dave Webb for templating suggestions.
• Kevin Dangoor for a lot of behind the scenes coaching.
• Gabblists for naming, coaching, and lots of good thoughts.
• The Scala community which is a pretty awesome place.

Please look at lift and let me know what you need in lift in order to use it in your project.

Thanks,

David