I use GWT heavily, but find the lack of models for the GUI elements the biggest problem, and the poor event model the next biggest. It's a bit like SWT in relation to Swing - it's easy to get something hacked out but eventually implementing new functionality becomes harder & harder.
We've solved this by 'porting' the Swing APIs over to GWT. I built a TreeModel that allows for add/remove of TreeNodes and that fires TreeModelEvents. We wrap the GWT Tree (in a Composite) and register it as a TreeModelListener. Now we do all our work on the TreeModel, and let the GUI update itself.
We've done the same port on the JTable/TableModel wrapping the GWT Grid.
This takes GUI development one abstraction higher, making in conceptually harder, but long-term much easier.
Google would be well advised to understand Swing and take GWT one abstraction-level higher.
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I use GWT heavily, but find the lack of models for the GUI elements the biggest problem, and the poor event model the next biggest. It's a bit like SWT in relation to Swing - it's easy to get something hacked out but eventually implementing new functionality becomes harder & harder. We've solved this by 'porting' the Swing APIs over to GWT. I built a TreeModel that allows for add/remove of TreeNodes and that fires TreeModelEvents. We wrap the GWT Tree (in a Composite) and register it as a TreeModelListener. Now we do all our work on the TreeModel, and let the GUI update itself. We've done the same port on the JTable/TableModel wrapping the GWT Grid. This takes GUI development one abstraction higher, making in conceptually harder, but long-term much easier. Google would be well advised to understand Swing and take GWT one abstraction-level higher.