MIKE BURBA

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• MIKE BURBA
• FOUNDER
• Google Web Toolkit
• APRIL 17TH, 2008

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Acknowledgements

• Portions of this presentation were borrowed with
  permission from the following presentations
• Bruce Johnson, GWT Tech Lead, Google
• Fast, Easy, Beautiful Pick Three - Building User
  Interfaces with GWT
• Writing Big Apps with GWT
• http//code.google.com/webtoolkit/presentations.ht
  ml
• Didier Girard, CTO, SFEIR
• Introduction to the Google Web Toolkit
• http//www.slideshare.net/dgirard/introduction-to-
  google-web-toolkit?srcembed

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DevHive is a SaaS platform for custom business
apps

• Platform-as-a-Service
• Business app building blocks
• Software marketplace

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Demonstration
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Why Ajax?
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At first, Ajax is really cool
SOURCE Didier Girard
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But, what about

• cross-browser
• memory leaks
• loading latency
• Javascript PhD
• Ajax IDE
• bugs (javascript is a dynamic language)
• cross browser javascript debugger
• security

SOURCE Didier Girard
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The Solution GWT

• Build Ajax apps with Java
• Developers with Java skills
• Tool support IDEs, debugger, JUnit, etc.
• Eliminate browser-specific coding
• Facilitate reuse
• Fast, simple RPC

SOURCE Bruce Johnson
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How it works
GWT GUI Library
Java Runtime Library
Application code
Panels Popup Stack Absolute Vertical
Widgets Button MenuBar Radio Tree Check
Table TextArea .
java.lang
java.util
Java.io
GWT Compiler
SOURCE Didier Girard
Browser IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera
Javascript Application
GWT Runtime 100Ko
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HelloWorld
SOURCE Didier Girard
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Robust API
SOURCE Bruce Johnson
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Widgets 100 Java
SOURCE Didier Girard
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History support
SOURCE Bruce Johnson
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RPC Support
SOURCE Didier Girard
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Cross browser, cross platform
SOURCE Didier Girard
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CSS

• GWT widgets are CSS compatible

SOURCE Didier Girard
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Debugger
SOURCE Didier Girard
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Javascript integration

• JSNI is modelled on JNI
• Many javascript library are already wrapped
  Dojo, Extjs, Google Ajax API

public static native void alert(String msg) /-
wnd.alert(msg) -/
SOURCE Didier Girard
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Compiler optimizations
SOURCE Bruce Johnson
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Tools

• GWT is supported by all the Java IDEs Eclipse,
  NetBeans, IntelliJ IDEA, JDeveloper,

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Open Source
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GWT The Community

• Millions of downloads
• 11,000 subscribers to the forum
• Books
• Tons of tutorials
• Blogs

SOURCE Didier Girard
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How easy do you find GWT to use ?
SOURCE Didier Girard
Source http//www.ongwt.com/post/2008/02/21/How-
easy-do-you-find-GWT-to-use
Google Confidential
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Resources
GWT http//code.google.com/webtoolkit/
Forum http//groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-
Toolkit
GWT Blog http//googlewebtoolkit.blogspot.com/
onGWT, Tracking news on GWT http//www.ongwt.co
m/
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Lessons Learned
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Design your apps for the real world

• Real-world users
• Have dial-up
• Click things furiously when they dont see the
  screen respond
• Dont find your app as elegant intuitive as
  you do
• They hit the back button
• Multi-task

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Think asynch

• Handle exceptions!
• Tell the user that something is going on
• Load pages incrementally
• Gracefully deal with stale sessions

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Working with adesigner

• Its ok to use more than one HTML page
• Have the designerprepare HTML / CSS
• Drop GWT elements onthe page as required

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Optimizing deployment

• Use ant
• Include only the files that are needed in
  production
• Compress static content (Gzip ant task) 25
  improvement
• Tell browser to cache (far future headers) 10X
  improvement

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One GWT module peruser role
Manager.gwt.xml 171k
Admin.gwt.xml 512k
User.gwt.xml 323k
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Use Model-View-Controller
Controller
Model
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During development, compilefor only one browser

Hosted mode currently uses IE. Once GWT 1.5
ships, you should be able to stick to FF
SOURCE Didier Girard
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Get Firebug
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Eclipse project layout

• Single Java project
• Manually setup JEE Web folders
• One folder for static content you want to cache
• Separate folders for
• Client
• Server
• Common / shared classes

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Contact info

• mike.burba_at_devhive.com
• 1.248.207.5054