What is the architectural purpose of the "view state" in JSF?
I understand that it stores the original state of the components on the page and is used during the JSF lifecycle when the FacesServlet receives a request. But why is it needed? What if the view state did not exist?
What if the view state did not exist?
The view would then not be mutable from the server side on. For example, you won't be able to attach/remove an UIComponent programmatically.
It's however quite possible to make JSF entirely stateless. See also this blog article.
