Re: The future of GWT and functional programming on the web

From what I heard, GWT team is heavily working on GWT 3.0. I have been using GWT 2.8.0 SNAPSHOT for a few months. Its lambda support is pretty awesome and very completed. Due to lack of resource on adding emulation of some JDK classes, 2.8.0 release is postponed ... 

I have been using GWT for all frontend projects since 2009. IMO, the core value of GWT is transpilation. I develop all of the business logic in GWT and utilize native JS libraries out there (jquery, chosen, google api, crypto, oauth, tinymice, filepicker, fetc) via JSNI (or GWT wrapper if applicable). Its true GWT is quiet this year, but I am not so worried as I looks at it as a transpiler. At the end of the day, a transpiler doesn't expire as long as Java stays.

On Friday, 4 September 2015 12:39:11 UTC+10, steve Zara wrote:

Although I have major projects in development using GWT, I'm concerned for its future, and I need to make decisions about which technologies to use for new development.  The reason for my concern is that after years of updates to GWT and reports of new technologies, 2015 has been quiet.  The official release of GWT 2.8.0, the release would provide for GWT developers the long-awaited syntax and libraries of Java 8, seems to have been postponed indefinitely, with no reports as to when it's likely to appear.  There's certainly no sign of GWT 3.0, which was discussed at GWT.create 2015.  

GWT seems to have lost visibility at major forums for software development, such as InfoQ, instead, the talk is of native JavaScript, ClojureScript and Scala.js.  If GWT is no longer going to be providing a way to use modern software techniques (such as the new functional syntax of Java 8) on the client side, what is likely to be the best alternative?  Scala.js seems the closest, providing a type-safe high-performance language on the JVM, and full functional programming on the web.  (There was a Scala GWT project for a short time, but that has died).

Is there likely to be an official GWT 2.8, even if GWT 3.0 never happens?   Or should those of us who want to make use of the power of functional programming accept that Java (via GWT) isn't going to ever officially provide that on web clients?

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