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Google Releases AJAX Framework
maquina writes "Google released a new AJAX framework based on Java. From Google's mouth: "Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language." This impressive framework promises to make AJAX available to the masses and is one more step towards Google becoming the de facto Internet platform provider."
I keep trying to read the story, and my brain just keeps seeing GOOGLE AJAX WEB DEVELOPMENT and filling in XML RUBY ON RAILS TAGBLOGCAST WEB 2.0.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Developers are tired of having to reinvent the wheel every time with dynamic components on web pages, and things like PEAR do not have all their component lib. in one centralized location like this. A developer framework for AJAX is definitely a revolutionary. It marks the move toward using web-based platforms for a greater and greater percentage of common computing functions.
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
That appears to be precanned Javascript,etc. that alot of people have done before. This is Java programming and debugging straight to 100% browser compatible HTML and Javascript. The only group larger than the google fanboy club is the google is smarter than me and i hate them club.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Yeah, lets bring back the good ole' days when Linx, Internet, world wide web, or microcomputer were the buzzwords of the day.
You people are look old farts complaining about the kids and their music today. Sure there are buzzwords and there is hype, but there always is, so just deal with it.
As opposed to Firefox (and right about every modern application I've used), which doesn't? It's just checking if there is an update to download. And only in the "hosted web browser" which you don't even need to use. Jeez. Paranoid.
Microsoft might have provided the first XMLHttpRequest implementation and used it first, but it was Google that made it popular. Before Google Suggest (and later GMail) caught everybody's attention, it languished relatively unknown to most developers for years. Now you can't get away from it.
Sure, browser compatibility played a large part too, but even after Mozilla implemented XMLHttpRequest, I didn't see many people talking about it until Google started using it. So Microsoft might have launched XMLHttpRequest, but it was Google that launched the trend, which is what xbrownx said.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0 2/14/1326238
Overlooked in what way? The title of the article was "Google Releases AJAX Framework," not "A Comprehensive Listing of All AJAX Toolkits."
-rd
There is a certain amount of genius in this. For years I've wondered what the best way to combine HTML/Javascript and OO language is, and now it seems obvious: create a tool kit that structures and generates the HTML for you, just as a window toolkit handles it for you. Genius.
I've never been a big fan of % languages. Mixing HTML and anything always looks, bad and fails misrably at seperating code from presentation. Seperating code from presentation on a dynamic page is impossible, but sticking the code in the mark-up language is the wrong compromise, but was the better of two evils (see JSP/Servlets).
Actually having Java classes that represent HTML objects and using them to create dynamic webpages makes so much sense, I'm suprised no one, especially Sun, have tried it earlier.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I wonder how difficult it will be to write degradable applications with this toolkit. The demo applications I played with do nothing at all with javascript disabled... they're just a script tag in a body tag, so they make no attempt to render the application using plain HTML. I know they're just demos, but it won't save any time if you have to develop the non-js version separately... which is a problem particularly for those of us who have to develop to accessibility standards.
Also, this is coming right on the heels of the buzz about Oracle's AJAX Framework... and of course there's the Eclipse AJAX Toolkit Framework, which uses Dojo, Zimbra, and OpenRico (which in turn uses prototype)... others have mentioned Yahoo!'s toolkit and Atlas, as well, not to mention Rails... My point is that there are suddenly a ton of frameworks that all have slightly different approaches to the whole AJAX idea. Some are higher-level, some lower; some target a specific server backend; some offer UI libraries... Any or all of these might merge or die off or be made irrelevant at any time. It's almost harder to develop AJAXy applications now than back when you had to write your own HTTP request code... sure, you can knock one out in ten minutes now, but you spend the time you saved choosing the toolset beforehand.
I think I'll wait a bit... we've put the scorpions in the box and shaken it, so let's see who survives.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
Are they using this for their own webapps?
It must be because Microsoft adheres to the "bazaar" notion of third-party software, rather than the "cathedral" of a centrally-managed package maintainer.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
...when Google started vacuuming up a lot of stray Java talent? I'm thinking of folks like Josh Bloch (author of Effective Java, one of the best books I've ever read on Java) and Adam Bosworth (former CTO of BEA). I was always sort of curious about what Google was up to. I've got no proof that either of these gentlemen we involved in GWT, but I'd be surprised if they weren't. Good job, Google.
Note that this toolkit primarly seem to try solve the problems of browser quirks, more efficiently design web sites using AJAX, and do remote procedure calls, not really to leverage the power of Java development and its language to web developers and Javascript.
The Google Web Toolkit supports only a small fraction of the Java Standard Library and seem to be able to replicate the functionality of only a few classes through its emulation library.
This is the stuff from the Java libraries that you can use and have it be able to "translate" your work: java.lang classes and java.util classes.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It phones home, and you don't have the source, that's enough to be paranoid.
Hm, for the first time ever, Google is playing catch-up with Microsoft. Microsoft has in fact released an AJAX toolkit a long time ago -- see ATLAS which is currently in community technology preview.
It's also free, so can anyone tell my Google's is better (and I don't want to hear arguments like "it's google's!")? Has anybody done a comparison?
I suppose that's nice if you actually like programming in Java.
I'll stick to rolling my own, thanks. I suspect I wouldn't be able to use a tool like this for more than a half hour without finding something I want to do that the toolkit doesn't support. What then? Can you edit the JavaScript output by hand or is it totally obfuscated?
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
you must have a different definition of cross-platform friendly to me then... I don't want to use ms windows in any form at all, so I can't develop this Microsoft Atlas stuff on my platform of choice.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The effect of this is that, if AJAX could only be used by people who understood all the issues of the underlying implementation, then it would hardly get used at all. Toolkits like this will allow 100% of developers to use 90% of the technology, instead of 5% of developers using 100% of the technology.
Forget "acceptable" - website design and development is perhaps the most practical science ever created. Nobody "does things because they can" in web development - people create toolkits, APIs, services, layouts, hacks, and other bits of code for the Web so that other people can use them to *actually build websites.* That means productivity is not only key, but it is desired at the practical exclusivity of knowledge of the code. In fact, if this toolkit means an art student largely ignorant of programming constructs can create a website like Flickr or Slashdot or a smoother looking Gmail, then I applaud that, because too few web designers really have any grasp of the word design.
The other difference between websites and most programs is that a lot of standalone programs are designed for niche users with specific needs, and can't be translated for other uses easily, whereas most website programming is designed out of flexibility. Because the web uses such loose languages (XML, JSON, SOAP, etc) toolkits are a great way to address the flexibility in a more intuitive way.
It's apples to oranges, really. Web design is 100% practicality.