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Why? This is not a troll, I'm very interested in your reasons.

by peterb 12y ago

shangxiao 12y ago
Well it's no longer "Google" Web Toolkit, it's now just "GWT"; they've handed it over to a steering committee. At the time I loved using it as it had many nice features. But sadly it's very hard to migrate from. Most importantly is the vendor lock-in with the 2 framework specific RPC mechanisms used to communicate to the server.
gknoy 12y ago
As someone who has been working with GWT, and since moved to JS, I can elaborate on why I agree. GWT was an excellent tool when I started using it, but has been eclipsed (no pun intended) by substantially nicer frameworks (IMO). I am extremely thankful to be using it as little as possible, and am migrating as many of our GWT apps over into Javascript apps as soon as workload allows. (I'd LOVE to hear from someone who is currently using GWT, and has compelling reasons that it's a great tool that are not driven by the inertia of a large codebase.) The main reason I'm glad not to use GWT is that I enjoy developing in Javascript a lot more than I do in GWT (Java). I have found that I can implement, modify, or troubleshoot a UI roughly an order of magnitude faster than I used to be able to do it with GWT. This is due to a combination of being able to reload by refreshing my browser (no slow re-compilation steps), as well as being able to inspect elements/styles directly in the Chrome dev tools. There are about an order of magnitude (or more!) people who write about Javascript, or $FrameworkOfChoice (Angular, Backbone, etc) than there are that write about GWT. This includes both blogs and Stack Overflow, not to mention examples on JSFiddle or the like. GWT doesn't easily let me integrate other Javascript libraries or components, so you have to implement your crappy version of Chosen (or similar) yourself. There's no JQuery or Underscore or similar, because it's all Java (basically). The Chrome Dev Tools or Firebug are >>> the GWT debugger. The GWT Dev Mode plugins required for debugging, is also no longer supported in Chrome, and soon in Firefox. (I discovered this last week, the first time I've touched GWT in half a year. There's a newer Dev Tools alternative, but I've been unable to actually get it working.) Javascript testing tools (Jasmine, phantomJS, etc) and build tools are now a MUCH more mature ecosystem than they were when GWT was first invented. We used to use a combo of JUnit + Watir/Selenium to test our UI, and now we can do similar with Javascript frameworks in a less fragile way. In summary, GWT was awesome, but I see no reason to use it today. It helped me find my current job, so I'm grateful for that. However, if you were looking for a web framework, you would be much better served (IMO) if you chose React, Angular, or Ember rather than GWT.
- skybrian 12y ago
  Sorry to hear you couldn't get it working. We're seeing about 5x compile time improvements in Super Dev Mode on trunk, but setup is not as easy as it could be. (It's being worked on.)
- calebrichardson 12y ago
  I have used GWT on two from scratch front ends within the last 8 months. All of your points are true and well written, but at the end of the day, I don't want to write and maintain large apps in JavaScript (or really in any dynamically typed language for that matter). GWT is still the best way to avoid that.
  - lmm 12y ago
    Have you touched on Angular in Dart? I agree with the value of typing, but full GWT just feels very clunky.

Why? This is not a troll, I'm very interested in your reasons.

by peterb 12y ago

Why? This is not a troll, I'm very interested in your reasons.

Well it's no longer "Google" Web Toolkit, it's now just "GWT"; they've handed it over to a steering committee. At the time I loved using it as it had many nice features. But sadly it's very hard to migrate from. Most importantly is the vendor lock-in with the 2 framework specific RPC mechanisms used to communicate to the server.

gknoy 12y ago

As someone who has been working with GWT, and since moved to JS, I can elaborate on why I agree. GWT was an excellent tool when I started using it, but has been eclipsed (no pun intended) by substantially nicer frameworks (IMO). I am extremely thankful to be using it as little as possible, and am migrating as many of our GWT apps over into Javascript apps as soon as workload allows. (I'd LOVE to hear from someone who is currently using GWT, and has compelling reasons that it's a great tool that are not driven by the inertia of a large codebase.) The main reason I'm glad not to use GWT is that I enjoy developing in Javascript a lot more than I do in GWT (Java). I have found that I can implement, modify, or troubleshoot a UI roughly an order of magnitude faster than I used to be able to do it with GWT. This is due to a combination of being able to reload by refreshing my browser (no slow re-compilation steps), as well as being able to inspect elements/styles directly in the Chrome dev tools. There are about an order of magnitude (or more!) people who write about Javascript, or $FrameworkOfChoice (Angular, Backbone, etc) than there are that write about GWT. This includes both blogs and Stack Overflow, not to mention examples on JSFiddle or the like. GWT doesn't easily let me integrate other Javascript libraries or components, so you have to implement your crappy version of Chosen (or similar) yourself. There's no JQuery or Underscore or similar, because it's all Java (basically). The Chrome Dev Tools or Firebug are >>> the GWT debugger. The GWT Dev Mode plugins required for debugging, is also no longer supported in Chrome, and soon in Firefox. (I discovered this last week, the first time I've touched GWT in half a year. There's a newer Dev Tools alternative, but I've been unable to actually get it working.) Javascript testing tools (Jasmine, phantomJS, etc) and build tools are now a MUCH more mature ecosystem than they were when GWT was first invented. We used to use a combo of JUnit + Watir/Selenium to test our UI, and now we can do similar with Javascript frameworks in a less fragile way. In summary, GWT was awesome, but I see no reason to use it today. It helped me find my current job, so I'm grateful for that. However, if you were looking for a web framework, you would be much better served (IMO) if you chose React, Angular, or Ember rather than GWT.

skybrian 12y ago
Sorry to hear you couldn't get it working. We're seeing about 5x compile time improvements in Super Dev Mode on trunk, but setup is not as easy as it could be. (It's being worked on.)
calebrichardson 12y ago
I have used GWT on two from scratch front ends within the last 8 months. All of your points are true and well written, but at the end of the day, I don't want to write and maintain large apps in JavaScript (or really in any dynamically typed language for that matter). GWT is still the best way to avoid that.
- lmm 12y ago
  Have you touched on Angular in Dart? I agree with the value of typing, but full GWT just feels very clunky.