Re: Revisiting Support for GWT Designer

For me GWT brings sanity in an insane platform.

By sanity I mean mostly static typing. Javascript, css and html are extremely fragile in typos and therefore refactorings. Since I am not that smart to figure out the correct interfaces with the first (or even the second) pass the refactoring is the only thing that is sure that will happen. So when I am changing method signatures, or lass hierarchies it is a very good thing that the compiler (or the IDE) will tell me that you can't do that because you have 26 internal clients of that method. With pure javascript I would have the options of grep or just don't touch the code anymore.

The same goes with css. I am willing to pay the price (almost any price actually) in order to know from the compiler where each css class definition is used - never mind the obfuscation (think namespacing) - never mind the the variable substitution that pure CSS lacks, are extremely nice features.

The same goes for HTML. UIBinder is the killer feature not the GWT designer - you can't really program without knowing the platform. At some point you will need to understand it. The only question is if you are going to have tools to help you do that or you are going to have everything in your mind for ever (in case you need to revisit code 3 months later)  playing the role of a compiler or static type checker.

Therefore GWT has great value for me. It would be nice if GWT was the equivalent of Qt for the web but it isn't.

If you just accept the insane fact that the javascript is the new assembly and the resistance is futile you may come into terms with the ugly truth.

  Vassilis

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 8:58 PM, Jens <jens.nehlmeier@gmail.com> wrote:

A bit off topic, but:  The real value of GWT for me has been the ability to write browser apps without HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Java (you know, spaghetti) - being able to use Java only.  As you start adding HTML and CSS to GWT apps  (the UI part), I question the whole value of GWT.

The value of GWT is its tooling support because it can reuse tooling from the Java world. That is literally the only reason that really counts. 

GWT is a leaky abstraction and will always be. If you refuse to learn more about the platform you are programming apps for (the web and its technologies) then you are limiting yourself. Good luck writing a smooth mobile website/app with custom UI and corporate identity theme without knowing HTML/CSS and browser reflows.

But yes that is off topic.

-- J.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Vassilis Virvilis

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to google-web-toolkit@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.