GWT in Action: Easy Ajax with the Google Web Toolkit

I warn you that the initial part of this review is a little negative, but please stick with it ;-) ...

In the initial chapters, I felt that the authors were sticking rigidly to the statement "... we are convinced that for learning to become permanent it must pass through stages of exploration, play, and, interestingly, re-telling of what has been learned.". The 're-telling' was very evident, for example the chapters would start with telling you what will be learnt in the chapter, then the chapter contents would re-iterate some of the start of the chapter and then there would be a table in the chapter to summarise the development steps that you had just read about, and then the summary of the chapter which re-hashes some of the information again. In some cases some chapters also repeated information from other chapters.

I appreciated the use of UML diagrams in places and felt that the non-standard diagrams could easily have been UML diagrams for consistency.

The steps to setup the project are dull and unfortunately I felt that the book spent a little too much effort in this area. I did hit a couple of problems but the online forum was very responsive and helpful.

I am an experienced Java Swing developer and from this point of view I found the GUI 'planning', 'coding', 'testing' and 'deploying' chapters very useful and well written. I could easily migrate my Swing knowledge to GWT after reading the book.

I didn't particularly like the 'Dashboard' sample application used throughout the book, but I have to admit that it's very rare for me to find a book with a decent (production-quality) example - but it did emphasise how GWT could be used for a very large ajaxy web application.

For any Java / Swing developers, I think you will find this book invaluable to generate web applications without having to know much about HTML and Javascript - although there are times where unfortunately you do have to get your hands a (little) bit dirty.

The latter chapters were very good - covering design patterns, junit testing and integrating with other 3rd party services. I found that part of the book far more rewarding than the Dashboard examples.

There are plenty of 'tips' that are worth knowing about that are contained in the book, i.e. plug-ins for firefox to aid debugging.

I can see me diving into this book whilst developing which is a testament to the amount of information available. Admittedly most of this information seems to be available on the Google website, but if you are like me and concentrate better by reading a book, I would recommend this as a very good book (just don't feel compelled to read the repetative bits!).

A minor point, the fonts I found very readable in this book, a contrast to the "A tutorial Java 6 new features" book that I received at the same time.

Oh yes, the initial part of the book seemed a little hands-on, where I was following the steps to create some simple application, but as the book went on there was none ofthat really happening - but that's the way I prefer it!

A useful and clear introduction (3/3 people found this helpful)

I found this a really useful book. The style is enthusiastic, the explanations clear and well illustrated, and at around 600 pages it covers a lot of ground at a good level of detail. If like me you're new to GWT it gives an excellent overview with examples to illustrate how to use the panels, widgets etc, and good sections on RPCs for serverside functionality, internationalisation, testing etc. As a clear, coherent, practical presentation of GWT, it is a great place to start, and where I've used it to look at more specific questions (on application structure and deployment, RPCs), it has given me the answers I needed.

A tutorial of no lasting value (9/10 people found this helpful)

This book isn't up to spec. But there's nothing else on this subject, so you may just as well buy it. But regard is at a tutorial of no lasting value.

It starts slow, using more than 100 pages to show how run the commands to create a standard project. It has a tendency to repeat the same stuff two, and even three times. The widgets are treated in an order that's not suitable for learning, or trying them out. The first examples unnecessarily mix in junk code that shouldn't be there at that time, because it adds nothing but confusion at that point.

It's only slightly easier to read than the stuff at the Google GWT site. It will save you a few hours to work from this book, but it won't do more than that. I would recommend supplementing the book with the examples from the GWT site.

You won't read this book again after having worked through your first few examples. But it's better than the tutorials on the net.

GWT in Action: Easy Ajax with the Google Web Toolkit

Robert Hanson, Adam Tacy

Reader Reviews:

A slow start, but eventually a complete GWT resource (3/3 people found this helpful)

A useful and clear introduction (3/3 people found this helpful)

A tutorial of no lasting value (9/10 people found this helpful)

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