Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Google Web Toolkit

Last night I had a date with google web toolkit. I have played with it before I was out to do a refresher course. So I got the latest version, now at 1.4 and I said I am going to figure this thing out and figure it out I did, well almost. I was able to use it to get a simple javascript application up and was trying to do some remote request stuff, which I was having problems with all the way up until I decided to quit and call it a night.

so what is GWT? Its a java framework for building javascript applications. Not everybody wants to take the time to learn how to write javascript, but just about everybody wants to get in on the new Rich Internet Application buzz. The solution is to create a compiler that takes Java (the most ubiquitous computer language) and converts it to an application that you can run in your browser with Ajax and All. I thought it was pretty neat. The interface for creating buttons and panels and labels and texboxes reminds of me of programming Java Swing. So if you are a great Java UI programmer you will have little trouble getting up and running with google web toolkit.

1 comment:

Adrian said...

I took a peep over at GWTs site today.. lol I know I'm late but I wanted to get my feet wet in this AJAX jazz.

I spent some time yesterday and partially converted one of my old perl CGIs manually to ajax. It was clear to me that my javascript left a lot to be desired so I went looking for some toolkits and so far I am liking what I am seeing in jQuery.