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Having used GWT for a large web application it is hard to say much positive about building web client applications in Java. The GWT compiler technology and debu

Having used GWT for a large web application it is hard to say much positive about building web client applications in Java. The GWT compiler technology and debugger support are great... but the flaws and rigidity of the Java language are so deep that quickly it becomes frustrating. Yes you get the syntax and semantics of java which may be a benefit for certain developers to quickly produce web apps but the abstraction is leaky and the nature of the language is unsuited for use in the browser (or GUI programming in general). I think the results speak for themselves - anyone care to name a GWT application from google with a world class GUI?

cromwellian 14y ago
flights.google.com or google.com/hotelfinder for example. Parts of Google Docs use GWT. Oh, and of course, Angry Birds for HTML5 was done with GWT. :)
- hermanhermitage 14y ago
  Flights is a bit thin on, hotelfinder is better but on my iPad here it's got that typical clunky google UI feel - and to be fair they aren't a design or GUI strong company - but it's clear they are making steps to address it. Good point - Angry birds is an excellent counter example and fair use case for GWT. It's not what I'd call a GUI app - I was more thinking Forms, Document interaction (word, excel, illustrator, photoshop). I see a strong use case for Java on GWT, emscripten et al for apps like games that are a universe to themselves, using a very narrow surface area (canvas, ogl) of the browser application interface. Where these abstractions fall down for me is the friction at every interface interchange. In java case that's callback friction (brievity matters to me), the heavy burden of types on variables versus values, a verbose and inarticulate typing system, and like C/C++ and many Algol derivatives a complete paucity of expressive Literals for expressing all data types that can be modelled by the type system.

cromwellian 14y ago

flights.google.com or google.com/hotelfinder for example. Parts of Google Docs use GWT. Oh, and of course, Angry Birds for HTML5 was done with GWT. :)

hermanhermitage 14y ago
Flights is a bit thin on, hotelfinder is better but on my iPad here it's got that typical clunky google UI feel - and to be fair they aren't a design or GUI strong company - but it's clear they are making steps to address it. Good point - Angry birds is an excellent counter example and fair use case for GWT. It's not what I'd call a GUI app - I was more thinking Forms, Document interaction (word, excel, illustrator, photoshop). I see a strong use case for Java on GWT, emscripten et al for apps like games that are a universe to themselves, using a very narrow surface area (canvas, ogl) of the browser application interface. Where these abstractions fall down for me is the friction at every interface interchange. In java case that's callback friction (brievity matters to me), the heavy burden of types on variables versus values, a verbose and inarticulate typing system, and like C/C++ and many Algol derivatives a complete paucity of expressive Literals for expressing all data types that can be modelled by the type system.