Despite all the in-fighting between JSF framework-focused companies, like ICEsoft, PrimeFaces, RichFaces and the like, one thing has become increasingly apparent – that JavaServer Faces components are in high demand for enterprises looking for sophisicated front-end development to match their rock-solid back-end infrastructure.

Many were sceptical when Oracle acquired Sun that JavaServer Faces 2.0 would merely become a footnote in the deal, tossed aside to the waste paper bin. But in fact, Oracle seems to have channelled a lot of energy, and created a lot of noise about the importance of using JSF as a front for a better all-round UI.

There were questions about whether Java would be ready to embrace HTML5. Would JSF indeed dovetail with JavaScript, or in fact supersede the latter?

Much of Oracle’s JSF grafting can be found within the Mojarra Project – which is striving towards the next major revision of the JSF specification, version 2.2. Ed Burns told SearchSOA that Oracle had only last week ”released a milestone 1 snapshot implementation of that specification, which is still very much in active development.”

JSF evangelist and principal consultant at Virtua, Inc also told SearchSOA where JSF was heading in the future. More opportunities for HTML5, cloud support in conjunction in Java EE 7, better portlet integration and flow management are expected in 2.2. “One of the things we’re looking at is … reducing the server side footprint,” he says.

Thanks in part to the companies that faciliated JSF’s jump in activity, the entire space is a vibrant, yet competitive hub – all actively sounding out how the specification should go.

JSF appears to be the answer for highly-interactive Java-centric organisations who were hesitant of making a huge leap to JavaScript, and wanted the best RIA applications at their disposal. Offering huge flexibility and customisable extras through libraries such tables, trees, buttons and spinners, JSF nods to the other technologies and aims to take the best in show to make JSF as seamless as possible for newcomers.

Now, JSF is becoming the de-facto standard, enterprises aren’t afraid to jump in the pool.