
Announcing GWT 2.0 Milestone 1   - silkodyssey
http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit/browse_thread/thread/8b79ebe444b9126d
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nissimk
Is anybody here using gwt? Is it really easier to use than any of the other
widely used javascript libraries? The whole java to javascript
translator/compiler sounds overly complex to me. Is there some other benefit
to using it aside from ease of use? Is it more likely to generate code that is
cross browser compatible than one of the other solutions?

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trapper
We've used gwt extensively and eagerly await 2.0.

GWT is basically built for building webapps like gmail. If you are building a
website then I wouldn't bother with it personally, I find jquery much easier
in that sense. It's really built for highly interactive, gmail/google
docs/wave like applications which are a single page with dynamic content.

Take a look at the following project, which is a nice example of what gwt can
do outside of google health, wave etc: <http://code.google.com/p/gwt-cal/>

There are huge benefits with 2.0 over other libraries for building these types
of applications:

<http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/10/gwt-2-m1>

[http://fredsa.allen-sauer.com/2009/09/gwt-for-enterprise-
dev...](http://fredsa.allen-sauer.com/2009/09/gwt-for-enterprise-developer-
jboss.html)

In terms of cross browser, we have only ever had a single issue which was a
drag and drop, google map like component. Workarounds were not that hard.

Oh, and styling your interface is very easy if you use firebug well. We have a
37-signals-esque single page interface which is pretty slick.

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paul
Just to be clear, Gmail was _not_ written with GWT.

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pohl
It's worth noting, though, that Google's implementation of Wave is written in
GWT. Since GMail predates the invention of GWT, it's likely that it would be a
GWT application if started today.

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paul
Many things would be different if Gmail were started today -- not all of them
good :)

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joshhart
GWT is wonderful. If you've come from a world of swing programming (like me),
it's very easy to build great, responsive GUIs.

I'm really excited about GWT 2.0. The new out-of-process development mode will
let me debug in any browser, using both the eclipse debugger and firebug at
the same time. Furthermore, the hosted mode browser on Linux was Mozilla 1.7,
which didn't support some things like SSL or Canvas. Now I plan on using
canvas a lot more.

I'm not sure how this changes the incubator project. I imagine they will bring
in many of the incubator classes into the main branch.

I'm going to have to play around with the declarative stuff. Not too sure how
useful that will be.

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cpr
Maybe it's just my dynamic language bias, but isn't GWT about 100X more
complex than using something like Cappuccino with Atlas to build a desktop-
like app?

And won't it look 100X uglier in GWT unless you are a CSS zen master?

Just watching that GWT "best practices" video made my head spin with all the
many layers and buzzwordy concepts one has to master just to make a simple
GUI.

Or perhaps it's just that I hate the staticness and verbosity of Java...

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pohl
I thought I would reply just in case you were referring to the video that I
linked to. If so, that is most certainly not a beginner's tutorial on the
basics that one would need just to make a simple GUI!

Rather, it's the other end of the spectrum: an example of how the toolkit
allows a large team to bring serious, large scale software engineering
practices to bear on something ambitious and complex.

One of the great things about GWT is that it offers something to that entire
spectrum.

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ez77
Pardon my ignorance, but what kind of infrastructure do you need for running
GWT? It pretty much means running your own (dedicated) servers, right? (For
example, I understand that Google's App Engine does not yet support it!)

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kathrinyc
Actually, Google's AppEngine is nicely integrated with GWT. Check out the
Google Eclipse Plugin (<http://code.google.com/eclipse/>) -- even if you're
not using eclipse, this will give you a good idea.

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joelgwebber
It's also worth pointing out that a compiled GWT application can be deployed
entirely statically. The Java RPC system does require a servlet container, but
there are lots of other ways of talking to servers (JSON[P], XHR, etc).

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jpcx01
SproutCore is also gearing up for 1.0 release soon. Some really good choices
nowdays for javascript based windowing apps.

