possible Java contract, what alternatives to suggest?
andrewcooke: i think i have a similar skill set to you, but i have tried both django and scala, so perhaps my perspective can help.if you're fluent with python, django's way better than java for most web stuff.  it's nowhere near as efficient, of course, but typically that doesn't matter for presentation layer (unless you're having to do some heavy processing of data for display, for example).  the documentation is pretty good, but if you need to tweak something, be prepared to read their code.[i don't really understand your objection to rest - even my java code (with spring + jsp) uses rest.  anyway, it's easy to change that.]i was surprised by scala.  if you've got experience with functional languages, it might make sense.  however, i was disappointed by the instability and lack of documentation, given its age and reputation.  it's a sweet language, and i am using it for a personal project that requires efficient code, but i was hoping to recommend it for use at work and decided against that (for now - in another year i am pretty sure that will change).but you don't give many details of what experience you have outside java.if you do go with java, i find spring to be the "lightest" framework, typically with just jsp and a few tags.  but compared to django that's still very heavy.