TomSoft

Web2.0:back to the roots

May 19th, 2006

Google just released
recently his “Google Web Toolkit”:

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java development framework that lets you escape the matrix of technologies that make writing AJAX applications so difficult and error prone. With GWT, you can develop and debug AJAX applications in the Java language using the Java development tools of your choice. When you deploy your application to production, the GWT compiler to translate your Java application to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.

So basically, it’s a toolkit that can be used to write Web2.0 application in
Java, and then translate it into some JavaScript+librairies.
It’s quite nice, writing client web applications in Java that execute in a
browser..Hey, but stop, this reminds me something: yes, the applet, and these
small pieces of Java running in a Web Browser? Yes, sounds very similar,
however, the Applet failed in their objective to be the technology for browser
application. Maybe it was too early and browser / pc capacity were not ready,
but also it suffered from a lack of interaction with the rest of the browsing
experience, while this is much better with Ajax2.0 app.
But basically, were are here: JavaScript/Ajax was just a technical way to solve
previous issue. Honestly, result is great from the end user point of view, but it’s
horrible from the engineering point of view. Writing complex Web2.0 app is a
nightmare, with a lot of different layers (Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Sql, HTML,
XML, etc…), translators, etc…

May be a message for the mobile community, could be also to learn from our
previous mistake, and make what was initially planned for web happened on
mobile: rich client app that can be downloaded and run within a browser, and
avoid this complex multiple layers.

We already have the technologies available on mobile (XML, J2ME, SVG, etc…)
we just need to tight them together in the right way.
I hope that this ideal scenario will happens (through JCP? 3GPP?) but I am
afraid that once again, the fight between standards, companies, etc… will
lead to a situation where nothing will really emerge, and we will leave again
in a world of translators, layers, and complexity…

Entry Filed under: Ajax, Google, MobileAjax