Able uses the following technologies:

• Stripes (web framework)
• Guice (IOC/AOP container)
• Hibernate (data persistence)
• Maven (build system)
• DWR (AJAX support)
• Quartz (job scheduling)
• SiteMesh (site decoration/common navigation)
• JSP 2.1 (templates and tags)

Able is a combination of clean integration of all these stacks (ie: common validation between Stripes and Hibernate) in the form of a library that can be used in your applications. But Able also provides a "starter kit" for new projects to use, which includes all the bits necessary to build an application with these technologies.

In short: Able is both a library and a best practice.