We’ve been looking around for a while at which of our current projects could benefit most from adding some AJAX pieces like sorting, dynamic sub-refreshes, quick menus, etc. The jury’s still out, since we don’t want to do it “just to do it”, but now I know what tool I want to use: the just-released Google Web Toolkit.
The toolkit basically lets you write and debug(!!) your AJAX application using your favorite Java IDE (they provide nice hooks for Eclipse). While developing you can test it in an integrated “browser” in the JVM — access to debugger — or in a standalone Javascript/HTML web browser. Also important, they integrate support for manipulating the back/forward button stacks so those finally can do the right thing in your AJAX page. Sweet.
Lots more reading and investigating to do on my part, but this is huge. I’ve had some exposure to Google Maps API and been impressed with the functionality, and it seemed obvious that something like this was going to follow. It’s different than I thought (Java) but makes sense. They claim comparable code sizes and speed compared to hand-written AJAX, but the development / debug cycle will be so much quicker it makes some performance hit worthwhile.
Am I reading this right? If I know nothing about Java, this won’t help me?
Comment by Brent Gustafson — 5/17/2006 @ 1:17 pm
I think it will still help, but yeah, you’ll need to learn some Java — mostly syntax and some class stuff. Nothing too crazy, I think it just uses a pretty small subset of the Java language. Also, on more reading it looks like the server-side calls are handled in servlets (presumably generated?), but I haven’t quite gotten to the part where it talks about integrating with existing data sources, etc. I’m sure it’s there.
It reminds me of some debates I’ve read about Ruby on Rails: it’s great for new development, but not so great trying to pull existing sites forward. Hopefully this toolkit can avoid that.
Comment by nate — 5/17/2006 @ 1:30 pm
Is that anything like MochiKit? A front end interpreter that writes javascript for you? I don’t know about those things, I’d rather just write javascript than write Python or Java that writes javascript for me.
Comment by eric — 5/17/2006 @ 2:44 pm
I guess it’s sort of similar, except it doesn’t look like MochiKit generates any code for you - it just provides a lot of nice libraries.
I think the big deal with GWT is the actual use of an IDE. (Coming from an OO development background I often miss the integrated tools an IDE can provide. Our current web development practices don’t really lend themselves to this.)
Anyway, back to GWT, Google seems to be gearing this thing up for writing actual desktop-like web apps, making an IDE sort of a necessity. You’ll be able to attach a debugger to a web application, test it locally, and then “publish” it as a Javascript/HTML page. I’m assuming the servlets will be developed in the same IDE, which should really make everything super nice to work with and maintain.
So I guess I’m excited, but not sold. I need to do a lot more research.
Comment by nate — 5/17/2006 @ 3:10 pm
If you are going to learn java anyways:)
You should check out flex, with you can create a flash application that talks directly to Plain Old Java Objects.
Comment by Bryan Thorson — 5/17/2006 @ 7:02 pm
You know that AJAX conversation reminded me of this article on O’Reilly Radar. Basically it draws the AJAX community up into two camps. Designers who like to program and developers who like to work on front end and backend code. Either side is of that community is dismissing most ideas of seperating data from presentation.
Thats nothing particularly new. Web nerds have been hassling Flash nerds about it for years, it’s interesting to see the Linux/Googley nerds mouthing the same arguments Flash designers have used albeit from a slightly different perspective.
Comment by eric — 5/22/2006 @ 9:33 am
All this talk about Google maps. Have you seen local.live.com?
Comment by jen — 6/7/2006 @ 9:52 pm
Timely comment by Jen: Michael at TechCrunch was just yesterday questioning the abundence of “Google Love” on the net these days…
The best answer I can give is that Google got it right - first - especially with releasing their API, and earned a lot of developer friends. These days you’re right: local.live.com is very impressive and in many ways better, but I’ve honestly only used it once or twice. Habit, I guess.
Comment by Nate — 6/8/2006 @ 8:24 am