Google Web Toolkit vs Straight Javascript for a large enough and complex application?

Question

I have a web conferencing client written primarily in Java / Swing with some native JNI modules for things like sharing video, audio, and the desktop. In total, the client is about 400 thousand lines of Java code, not including its own modules.

We are exploring a long-term transition plan from Java / Swing to HTML5 / Javascript for the client. Browser support is currently unsustainable / non-existent for some of our needs, such as voip, webcam video, and desktop sharing. Therefore, in the short term, we could download a browser plugin to do all this with HTML5 / JAvascript to do the rest.

For something so complex (mostly a rich desktop client that is portable to the Internet) that would make sense: GWT (Google Web Toolkit) or direct Javascript using a JS library like jQuery?

EDIT: There are currently 5 developers working on this project.

Answer 1

If you have programmers with a Java background, there are many reasons why you should use GWT:

• powerful statically typed language and @client side
• fast development (!!!)
• instruments! IDE, PMD, FindBugs and gazillion. Also setting up Eclipse with the Google plugin is just a piece of cake, unlike many other frameworks. Permutations
• for different browsers are already processed by GWT itself
• your JavaScript is optimized - processed by GWT
• you STILL CAN use simple JavaScript if you want (however GWT is designed the way you don't need to)
• GWT is really scalable. Your Java back-end will remain true to Java, so you can use any of your favorite powerful Java libraries.
• The development of the client side is quite reliable and similar to Swing, it is not so difficult to find a programmer to fit there

And many others. Honeslty, JavaScript is still rather slow (well, not to troll - there is no “speed” in the language, but you will get me). It doesn't matter if you use jQuery or GWT. Facing him, he will not work as fast as a fat client. So why sacrifice your comfort :)

Answer 2

Take the google wave product as an example. This was combined with plain old javascript in GWT to support faster development, especially given that many developers are working on the project at the same time.

In my experience, manually hacking into the site of what you offer with jQuery will be a terrible job, which is likely to be related to refactoring problems, the complexity of code reuse, and probably ending up with a lot of code, it will be very difficult understand if all new developers come to the team.

Don't get me wrong jQuery really a great javascript tool; but when you write full applications in it, it quickly becomes unmanageable. This is at least my opinion.

Answer 3

In my experience, GWT is great for developing web applications whose purpose is to simulate the look of a desktop application. The fact that your team already seems to have more Java / Swing experience will make this migration path easier than switching directly to a pure JavaScript solution.

Using pure JavaScript to create a web application on your desktop, you will search or use many libraries / toolkits / plugins / widgets (even using jQuery) to get the basics. These basics can be easily provided by GWT.