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It sounds like you might be confused about what GWT is. It's not a replacement or alternative to FireBug. They do completely different things. GWT is basically

by jm4 17y ago

It sounds like you might be confused about what GWT is. It's not a replacement or alternative to FireBug. They do completely different things. GWT is basically a set of widgets and controls. It allows you to write Java code that generates a slick HTML/Javascript/AJAX frontend without having to worry much about things like requests and HTTP. It's a web development environment that feels more like a desktop environment. In any case, it also solves the debugging problem because the whole thing is now in Java. Just use your Java debugger.

bcl 17y ago
That's exactly what I'm asking. Is the backend also in Java then? So that debugging front and backend is all integrated? My impression from what I've read is that it is strictly front end Java to Javascript conversion, not both sides. (in my original comment I could have been a bit clearer I suppose -- I currently find the pain in web app development to be debugging the interaction between the UI and the backend. I see how GWT can make UI development easier, but not the full stack)
- wicknicks 17y ago
  Yes. Google released an Eclipse plugin which helps you write setup the toolkit and start developing applications in no time. GWT also comes with an in build server which lets you test run your Client side code with complete debugging facilities of Eclipse/Java. I agree that Firebug is a good tool, but I just can't replace Eclipse with FF/Firebug. The complete backend can be coded in Java. This of course you can debug even after you have compiled the entire front end of pure JS. GWT also provides some useful data modeling techniques to exchange data between the server and client (basically an abstraction over AJAX). I used to dislike the earlier versions of GWT because of its dependency on Java 1.2 and not being able to support the higher versions, but the current versions seamlessly compile Java 1.6 code and its awesome.

by jm4 17y ago

bcl 17y ago

That's exactly what I'm asking. Is the backend also in Java then? So that debugging front and backend is all integrated? My impression from what I've read is that it is strictly front end Java to Javascript conversion, not both sides. (in my original comment I could have been a bit clearer I suppose -- I currently find the pain in web app development to be debugging the interaction between the UI and the backend. I see how GWT can make UI development easier, but not the full stack)

wicknicks 17y ago
Yes. Google released an Eclipse plugin which helps you write setup the toolkit and start developing applications in no time. GWT also comes with an in build server which lets you test run your Client side code with complete debugging facilities of Eclipse/Java. I agree that Firebug is a good tool, but I just can't replace Eclipse with FF/Firebug. The complete backend can be coded in Java. This of course you can debug even after you have compiled the entire front end of pure JS. GWT also provides some useful data modeling techniques to exchange data between the server and client (basically an abstraction over AJAX). I used to dislike the earlier versions of GWT because of its dependency on Java 1.2 and not being able to support the higher versions, but the current versions seamlessly compile Java 1.6 code and its awesome.