January 18th, 2007
Google opens up to outside contributors
A few weeks ago, Google
opened up development of their Google Web Toolkit and released the whole system under the Apache license. Now they've taken the next logical step, by accepting their first outside contributor to the project: Sandy McArthur. I caught up with Sandy after the announcement to ask him about the pros and cons of GWT, why a web developer should consider it, and how they can get started.
[ZDNet] What drew you to GWT in the first place?
[Sandy] Java is my favorite language because I prefer it's structure and rigidness. It protects me from myself and I believe I write better code the first time when I write in Java than if I'm using a loosely typed language or less defensive ones such as C/C++. Also, anyone who has used IntelliJ IDEA (and to a lesser extent Eclipse & NetBeans) will be able to tell you that the claimed weaknesses of a strict, strongly-typed language are actually strengths because of how the tools can assist you.
A significant portion of my programming at work is web related and pressure to provide AJAX-esque features in webapps eventually got me to make time to prototype some crude user interfaces with GWT. Previously, I'd try a different AJAX toolkit about every month looking for one that fit me. I only wish I'd given GWT a try a few months earlier.
[ZDNet] So it was love at first sight?
[Sandy] Actually, when I first read about GWT I was not impressed. I didn't believe that the Java to JavaScript indirection GWT provides was really a good thing. (See Joel's Law of Leaky Abstractions for more on that.)
But then after using GWT for a while I realized GWT is not strictly Java and that GWT works well. This is a bit confusing since GWT feels at lot like Java and is sold as a Java platform so people can better wrap their brains around it. That isn't a negative for GWT, its similarity to Java is what lets you use many of the programmer's existing Java skills and allows them to use many of the powerful tools Java already has.
[ZDNet] What do you use it for now?
[Sandy] Mostly work related projects, and since Google open sourced the compiler I've enjoyed learning about it and trying to improve it.
[ZDNet] Fill in the blank: GWT is the greatest thing since ____?
[Sandy] … since XmlHttpRequest became available in all common browsers.
There are many things better than GWT. (Sex, drugs, and rock and roll to name a few. :-) ) It's just DHTML and XmlHttpRequest are the foundation of AJAX and GWT is the next best thing in that context. [continued on page 2...]
Ed Burnette is a professional developer and author of several articles and books about computing including Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform, 2nd Edition. For disclosure of Ed's industry affiliations, click here or to view his full profile click here.
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