I’m one of the many Java web programmers who’ve fallen for Wicket. I feel like a 10-year rift is has finally been mended: Java and the Web can finally play together.

When Java was introduced as a programming language (and environment), it was pitched primarily for its applet capability. The idea was for applets to take over for any sort heavy-duty user interaction on a site. I’m glad that Sun recognized the importance of Web programming, but applets were a failure. They survive today mostly as a “chatting application of last resort,” soon to be displaced entirely by AJAX. But surprisingly, Java server-side programming became huge over the past decade, in every way.

Big, lumbering Java web-apps run the show at most big, lumbering corporations. No sane, uncorrupted programmer would describe the design of these applications as clean. (Imagine someone who’s recently learned basic OOP trying to make sense of a typical large Struts app.) But there are tens of thousands of indoctrinated programmers somehow making the Web work in Java.

For the malcontents, our champion has finally arrived. It can assemble Web pages as objects, and do it with less code too. We had better make Wicket work, or else jump on the Rails train before we’re left in the dust.