So many things to do, so little time?

The java ecosystem has a huge selections of mainly open source web frameworks.

What I am wondering is: when does the sheer amount of options to choose from have an impact

• on the developer
• on the respecitve web frameworks
• on the ecosystem itself?

I remember having read about studies where putting more than 5 (?) variations of the same product has a counterproductive impact on sales figures, at least for daily goods.

The same should be valid for the developer who has to choose a web framework for the next project. And it is not only the developer: even an advanced managment can loose patience when the 10th web framework is presented as "The Solution". So the impact might be on the ecosystem itself, insofar as that ASP.NET still does not have too many alternatives (things are changing there too)

Another point to consider is the fact that time is sparse also for potential web framework developers and community members. The abundance of high quality php-based CMS is a contradiction to this argument, so this might not be too big an issue.


Solutions?

Hard to say. It's hard to imagine, as example, to merge Tapestry and Wicket. Perhaps the Spring way to divide an conquer might be a solution. A good example is Grails, which allows to use Wicket as presentation framework. On the other hand this leads to even more choices: use Wicket OR Grails changes to use Wicket AND/OR Grails.