Applets vs. AJAX

Applets vs. AJAX

I'm writing this big because searching for the Google Web Toolkit brings up next to nothing. In fact, it's currently a kind of a 3-word Googlewack :-/

So internet is supposed to help you share the programs you've written, right? And there are at least two major ways to do it: applets and AJAX. Let's look at the some pros and cons to each approach.

Applets:

• Pros:
  • Use your java knowledge
  • Use java tools to lets you follow best practices conveniently
  • Testing and debugging is easy, w00t!
• Cons:
  • User must download a VM
  • Long load time
  • Longer startup time
  • State of the app is non-bookmarkable

AJAX

• Pros:
  • Tiny load time no startup time
  • It's all javascript, the browser is all you need
  • AJAX is way hip :-P
• Cons:
  • The fastest way to do things in JavaScript isn't the right way
  • Debugging and testing is just a pain
  • App is still not quite bookmarkable

Enter the Google Web Toolkit!

Now you can write your app in Java, test, debug in Eclipse and then magically have it turn into a JavaScript interface. That's right, you could write something very much like GMail without having to write a single line of JavaScript.

So basically, with the GWT, you can take all the pros of applets, combine them with the pros of AJAX, and throw away all the cons. But wait, how do you make the app bookmarkable? They solved that too ... it's absolutely amazing!

I can only think of a dozen fancy Web 2.0 interfaces and I'm sure there are thousands of developers who wish they could make slick web-interfaces. I hope the GWT helps even out this imbalance!