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

I've been using GWT for years. Obviously, I am a little biased, but I love GWT. I am totally fine with using more native JS and in general with the direction the steering committee is taking. I am much more concerned with the marketing effort behind GWT. Success of any open source technology depends on the size and vibrancy of its community. In other words, we should be all concerned with attracting more developers to the platform. I am going my part - I answered more questions on SO tagged with GWT than anyone not named Thomas Broyer :)  And while support for existing developers is important, it's equally important to recruit more developers/teams who are starting new projects.

http://www.gwtproject.org/ was a step in the right direction. I think, however, that we need to add a list of prominent projects using GWT and a showcase of apps created with GWT. Showcase of widgets is fine, but many developers may not realize that GWT in no way limits creativity or design possibilities. I am proud, for example, to showcase my latest project:

https://www.angelslikerebels.com/#Discover:

This is pure GWT/MGWT - no third party widgets. You can see how the UI changes on phones compared to desktop, with minimal extra code. Scrolling behavior was a major PIA, but that's a topic for another post.

I am sure there are many beautiful apps built with pure GWT or a combination of GWT and other UI frameworks. We should put them on a webpage page, which every developer can point to the next time his or her boss/client/co-worker asks what can be done with GWT. Anything can be done with GWT! And it may look any way you like it.

Andrei Volgin

Angels Like Rebels, Inc.

President & CTO

On Thursday, September 3, 2015 at 10:39:11 PM UTC-4, 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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