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First time I see that - is there any particular reason why would one use that for applications instead of, for example, GWT? edit: I am watching screencasts no

First time I see that - is there any particular reason why would one use that for applications instead of, for example, GWT? edit: I am watching screencasts now from http://cappuccinocasts.com http://cappuccinocasts.com (I'm not Ruby guy though - PHP, but doesn't matter) - and I am wondering how the hell are you 1) how to debug/profile this? What, a hunch or traces and alerts? 2) .j files are in plain sight to anyone, not obfuscated 3) Why .j at all in production, why not compile down to javascript? 4) It seems nice from a perspective of a desktop guys viewpoint (here is one!) 5) holy spaghetti code

nestlequ1k 17y ago
GWT is a java library. To me it seems sick and crazy to code java that generates javascript. It's like using assembler to generate C code.
- Keyframe 17y ago
  Have you actually tried to write anything with GWT and/or used Java and it's wonderful tools? And how does it make more sense to basically have a pseudo-VM running on top of JS than to spurt out heavily optimized JS code like GWT does? I'm really interested in answers to both questions.
  - tumult 17y ago
    Obj-J isn't a VM, it preprocesses and has some runtime functions.
  - ryanfitz 17y ago
    I work in gwt everyday and there are lots of pluses to it such as the easy communication between the client and server and taking away a lot of the dom headaches. However, I have several issues with it. Compile time from java to javascript is very slow, simple app takes a few minutes to compile. You typically will work in a hosted mode browser so changes are on the fly, in many scenarios things work in the hosted mode browser, but fail inside a normal browser, regex and bigdecimal use are two such pain points. A big issue that I have with it is that developers end up putting way too much business logic inside the gwt portion of an app, simply because its just java anyway, right? You can't really blame gwt for bad programming, however, because of the notion of its just java it easily allows developers to not think and just put business logic in the ui. If this was javascript developers would much rather do the more complicated business-y things on the server side (typically where it should belong), rather than in javascript because most people really dislike working in JS. I personally feel that its very difficult to build a gwt app while maintaining a clean well refactored codebase and doing TDD is also very difficult with the framework. I say difficult and not impossible, because I have done it in the past, but its not easy and really takes time and care. Again because its not easy to do these things developers tend to not do them, thus leading to messy, hard to change apps.
    - Keyframe 17y ago
      >simple app takes a few minutes to compile >You typically will work in a hosted mode browser I thought those issues are now thing of the past. At least that's what I saw in google i/o presentations. For the other part it seems more like an issue with development approach and not GWT per se. I have only dabbled a bit with it and like it more than writing JS for full blown web apps. Cappuccino intrigued me because of my background in desktop apps - albeit not Cocoa. There are many idioms I am used to, so I'll give it a spin.
- tumult 17y ago
  This sounds like it might be true until you write a large application and then type safety suddenly makes a lot of sense, even a stupid non-inferred type system like Java's.
tolmasky 17y ago
1) As mentioned in the blog post, we have taken the time to actually build in ObjJ support into WebKit's debugger and profiler. I would classify this as one of the best debugging and profiling experiences for JS out there (not that there is much competition). More info here: http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/04/29/building-a-better-javascript-profiler-with-webkit/ http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/04/29/building-a-better-j... 2/3) There is no need to ship .j's in production. We ship a compiler/obfuscator/compressor that will spit out the same illegible code that you would get if you were just using JavaScript with a compressor. It will also concat all the files together to dramatically improve load times.
- Keyframe 17y ago
  Thanks, this relieves my fear then (since I actually quite like what I see). I'll give it a spin! And happy anniversary!

nestlequ1k 17y ago

GWT is a java library. To me it seems sick and crazy to code java that generates javascript. It's like using assembler to generate C code.

Keyframe 17y ago
Have you actually tried to write anything with GWT and/or used Java and it's wonderful tools? And how does it make more sense to basically have a pseudo-VM running on top of JS than to spurt out heavily optimized JS code like GWT does? I'm really interested in answers to both questions.
- tumult 17y ago
  Obj-J isn't a VM, it preprocesses and has some runtime functions.
- ryanfitz 17y ago
  I work in gwt everyday and there are lots of pluses to it such as the easy communication between the client and server and taking away a lot of the dom headaches. However, I have several issues with it. Compile time from java to javascript is very slow, simple app takes a few minutes to compile. You typically will work in a hosted mode browser so changes are on the fly, in many scenarios things work in the hosted mode browser, but fail inside a normal browser, regex and bigdecimal use are two such pain points. A big issue that I have with it is that developers end up putting way too much business logic inside the gwt portion of an app, simply because its just java anyway, right? You can't really blame gwt for bad programming, however, because of the notion of its just java it easily allows developers to not think and just put business logic in the ui. If this was javascript developers would much rather do the more complicated business-y things on the server side (typically where it should belong), rather than in javascript because most people really dislike working in JS. I personally feel that its very difficult to build a gwt app while maintaining a clean well refactored codebase and doing TDD is also very difficult with the framework. I say difficult and not impossible, because I have done it in the past, but its not easy and really takes time and care. Again because its not easy to do these things developers tend to not do them, thus leading to messy, hard to change apps.
  - Keyframe 17y ago
    >simple app takes a few minutes to compile >You typically will work in a hosted mode browser I thought those issues are now thing of the past. At least that's what I saw in google i/o presentations. For the other part it seems more like an issue with development approach and not GWT per se. I have only dabbled a bit with it and like it more than writing JS for full blown web apps. Cappuccino intrigued me because of my background in desktop apps - albeit not Cocoa. There are many idioms I am used to, so I'll give it a spin.
tumult 17y ago
This sounds like it might be true until you write a large application and then type safety suddenly makes a lot of sense, even a stupid non-inferred type system like Java's.

tolmasky 17y ago

1) As mentioned in the blog post, we have taken the time to actually build in ObjJ support into WebKit's debugger and profiler. I would classify this as one of the best debugging and profiling experiences for JS out there (not that there is much competition). More info here: http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/04/29/building-a-better-javascript-profiler-with-webkit/ http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/04/29/building-a-better-j... 2/3) There is no need to ship .j's in production. We ship a compiler/obfuscator/compressor that will spit out the same illegible code that you would get if you were just using JavaScript with a compressor. It will also concat all the files together to dramatically improve load times.

Keyframe 17y ago
Thanks, this relieves my fear then (since I actually quite like what I see). I'll give it a spin! And happy anniversary!