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GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

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Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#31

Post by flaub »

geekles wrote: post #16

The problem with GWT is java, which makes it meh.

I've been working on a .NET clone of GWT as a side-project for awhile. It doesn't have a widget library yet, but it does have web-mode and development-mode. It works by decompiling MSIL which means you can use any .NET language you want.

http://github.com/flaub/DotWeb

Not much in terms of demos, but the core technology is all pretty much done. Plugins for FireFox (NPAPI-based) and IE work so that you can set breakpoints in Visual Studio. Web-mode does a decent job of optimizing right now because it does method dependency analysis.

Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#32

Post by jimbokun »

rbanffy wrote: post #14

Those who like statc-typing will always find it ridiculously great. Those used to dynamic-typing will find the idea of writing JavaScript in Java ridiculous, but not great. There is wisdom in the middle.

"Those who like static-typing will always find it ridiculously great."

People who actually like static-typing probably don't like Java, but something more like Haskell.

Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#33

Post by mmastrac »

jonmc12 wrote: post #8

GWT always sounds interesting, but I am underwhelmed by the application gallery. Every app looks like a draft version of gmail, google maps or google wave. Any links to impressive interfaces (non google-built)?

MediaBeacon showed off a really cool GWT-based product at Campfire. They've built the equivalent of a desktop application inside the browser (full drag-and-drop, file management, etc). The video is up on their website: http://mediabeacon.com/

I'll also plug our GWT-based product, DotSpots. I'm dogfooding it on my blog at http://grack.com - just select one of the paragraphs or click one of the blue dots to see the UI. It's an example of a non-traditional GWT application: we're running our own GWT code inside of a foreign website. Our website is more of classic GWT application, but we compile both of those targets (as well as Chrome and Firefox extensions) from subsets of the same codebase.

Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#34

Post by mmastrac »

jauco wrote: post #23
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't require some third-party (which tend to lag behind the latest versions) library to get it working and I can write normal server side code in Python, etc.

You can run a REST server and make your callbacks using JSON. That's what I did a while back. PHP could be used without problems.

I've done the same in the past (Python backend). I'll add one more suggestion on top of that. You can create JSNI bindings for all of the JSON RPC objects with GWT to get compile-time API checks that disappear entirely from the output.

Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#35

Post by old-gregg »

kls wrote: post #17

While, GWT is a very impressive feat of technical accomplishment. It really misses the mark, the problem with it as well as most of the old desktop development (languages, toolkits, frameworks) is that it favored the developer over the designer. This is one of the reasons for the popularity of the web, it allowed the designer (and the want-to-be designer) the ability to design and build interfaces without having to k…

I believe there's very limited role of "design" when it comes to application development: people want consistent look and feel in all apps, they want to reuse their skills and not having to re-learn how to add an item to a list for every little piece of software.

It doesn't mean that everything needs to look like crap for the sake of consistency: just look at Cocoa-based software: you don't need a designer to build a great looking GUI on a Mac.

Why is web different? Because it stands with one foot in its past: a UI screen is treated like a "page", a magazine cover, hence the false need for a designer. The result? More often than not you get a gypsy blanket instead of a modern user interface.

This reminds me of the DOS era when developing a graphical application felt like building a game: you needed to design buttons, scrollers, etc. Yeah, funny I haven't thought about this before: web-based GUI feels a lot like MS DOS apps: for a developer as well as for the user.

Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#36

Post by jawngee »

johnyzee wrote: post #26
jonmc12 wrote: post #8

GWT always sounds interesting, but I am underwhelmed by the application gallery. Every app looks like a draft version of gmail, google maps or google wave. Any links to impressive interfaces (non google-built)?

We build TeamPostgreSQL with GWT. It is a PostgreSQL web administration package. Feel free to to take a look: http://www.teampostgresql.com The download package comes with a bundled sample database, so you can take it for a spin too. Feedback welcome.

I have some feedback:

- I was totally confused how to launch this - I couldn't discern any benefit of this over phpPgAdmin minus the nicely done interface - I couldn't discern any benefit of this over Aqua Data Studio, NaviCat, et al. sans pricing.

I'm really curious why you chose to do this as a web app. If the benefit is to give "managers" and others access to the database to run reporting, where is the graphing, pivot table, etc support? If it's to give other developers access, your desktop counterparts (specifically Aqua Data Studio) provide tools you are lacking (code completion, diagramming). Granted there is a sizable price difference, which could be a selling point, but again phpPgAdmin does all that you do and is free and extensible because it's OSS.

Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#37

Post by silvestrov »

johnyzee wrote: post #26
jonmc12 wrote: post #8

GWT always sounds interesting, but I am underwhelmed by the application gallery. Every app looks like a draft version of gmail, google maps or google wave. Any links to impressive interfaces (non google-built)?

We build TeamPostgreSQL with GWT. It is a PostgreSQL web administration package. Feel free to to take a look: http://www.teampostgresql.com The download package comes with a bundled sample database, so you can take it for a spin too. Feedback welcome.

The screenshots are too few and show too little. I get the impression of a very simple "me too" app that can do very little and provides no benefit over the cmd line. At least a screenshot for every bullet point in the details, and show how you handle corner cases such as columns with 10K text.

Ditto jawngee suggestion about creating "end user" pages with standard reports (e.g. graphs using http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeplot/). Allow me to let users view them without logging in. That is what cmd line can't do.

Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#38

Post by richcollins »

donjaime_hn wrote: post #3
richcollins wrote: post #2

How could trading the expressiveness of JS for the expressiveness of Java without the commensurate increase in performance be "So good it's ridiculous".

You clearly didn't RTFA. I'll give you my personal reasons for liking GWT in a few short bullets. 1. Better tooling - IDE refactoring when I need to change things. Red squigglies when I make a typo or reference something thats not there. A real debugger with breakpoints for finding bugs. Auto completion and auto style formatting so I dont have to type so goddamn much. 2. Compiler optimizations - Your code gets faster…

1. No reason you couldn't do this in JS (see Smalltalk)

2. The new JS VMs do plenty of optimization

3. C has more libraries than Java. Lets use C for everything

4. Actually, there is a lot of evidence that maintainability is inversely related to the number of lines of code. The more lines, the more bugs. (I don't have time to find the studies. They are there if you Google them.)

I did read the article. I just wasn't interested in writing a treatise on the subject. Just wanted to give a counter point.

Re: GWT 2.0: So good it's ridiculous

#40

Post by hello_moto »

ibsulon wrote: post #24
jonmc12 wrote: post #8

GWT always sounds interesting, but I am underwhelmed by the application gallery. Every app looks like a draft version of gmail, google maps or google wave. Any links to impressive interfaces (non google-built)?

I suggest looking at the EXT-GWT library for what is possible. I'm using it in a project where its GPLness doesn't matter.

It depends on your needs.

If you don't want to modify the widget appearances or behaviors, Ext-GWT is nice.

If you aren't building a large web-app, Ext-GWT is the way to go.

But if you're one of them people who prefer to do TDD, or unit-test etc, avoid Ext-GWT at all cost.

If you want to personalize your app, avoid Ext-GWT at all cost.

If you want a solid (library) Java code, avoid Ext-GWT at all cost.

I've been using their code since MyGWT 0.4 and right now we're trying to get rid of it so bad.

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