I won’t even begin with what GWT is. It’s clear that if you are reading this blog, then you have a faint idea what it is.

First off, a few days ago, I started experimenting with GWT, trying to fathom its mysteries, trying to make sense of this new (for me) technology that google has come up with.

The goal was simple:

• To learn how to develop a web user interface with this technology.
• To learn how to wire this web user interface to a backend engine.
• To learn how to style and add flavor to the application created with it.
• To know (like a sort of recipe) how to do the usual things I want to do when developing web applications.

So, off I go.

First thing I noticed was the minimal HTML and Javascript that I had to write. Wow, I’m writing the web user interface in Java. Ain’t that cool? You see, previously, when you sit down to write a web application, first thing you do is to open MS Frontpage or Dreamweaver ( or emacs/vi if your a hardcore ) and pump up a beautiful webpage using the wysiwyg tool they’ve got. It gets boring quickly when you realize that more than fifty percent of your time is spent trying to hunt down browser incompatibilities. Then you try adding server side scripts to your webpage to make it dynamic (true in PHP and JSP, don’t know with others), and spend some time wiring the user interface so that it connects with your backend. Painful.

So, what do you do in GWT (I hear you ask) ? First, you google the term “GWT”. Then you read the documentation that they have on their website. Then, after that initial hurdle of creating your first project, you start coding! in Java! Using Swing-style of developing user interfaces! The thing is, GWT has its own libraries of user interface elements called widgets, and you assemble your web application using these components. It is by no means complete, so, they give you the option of being able to create more components. Ask google how. The idea is, you might not be able to create an aesthetically pleasing web interface quickly, but you can easily add functionality as fast as you can think and type. You can easily prototype an idea, but not a design ( well, yes, you can, if you go with google’s default look and feel ). Good for programmers, bad for designers. Well, of course, you can always go by the “create the webpage and add the controls via ID” route but where’s the fun in that? By the way, you add flavor to your GWT application via CSS, so keep a Core CSS Reference handy.

So far, I’m immensely enjoying it.  But then again, I’m developing a webapp, not a website, and my taste for color is so bland you’d puke.

Posted on 02.05.08 to Uncategorized by erle. Subscribe to follow comments on this post. No comments yet. Add your thoughts or trackback from your own site.

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