Google Releases AJAX Framework

maquina writes "Google released a new AJAX framework based on Java. From Google's mouth: "Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language." This impressive framework promises to make AJAX available to the masses and is one more step towards Google becoming the de facto Internet platform provider."

Google:

Your source of, vangaurd of and now creator of all your information.

Re:The best feature of this toolkit

Just because the AJAX code is not hand coded doesn't mean Google is moving in a new direction. In fact they're moving forward more agressively in the same direction, and are just releasing tools to help everyone go the same way (especially the Google way).

Re:The best feature of this toolkit

It's not quite a "brand new direction" - Microsoft's Atlas product has been offering something along these lines for a while now (albeit still as a beta). You lay out controls visually in Visual Studio (or Express), and control them programmatically from .NET. It takes care of rendering them down to HTML + Javascript, and it's pretty much cross platform friendly.

Re:The best feature of this toolkit

I personally find the way it handles remote prodecure calls to the server [google.com] the most interesting. Just define a serializable java class, you say? And GWT handles the rest, you say? Sign me up!

This is sexy stuff, people. :-)

The worst feature of this toolkit...

...is that it's a closed-source, binary-only executable. Download page [google.com]:

The GWT Java-to-JavaScript compiler and hosted web browser are shipped binary-only and subject to the license below.

Another downside...

...is that it phones home [google.com] to Google.

When you use the Google Web Toolkit's hosted web browser, the application sends a request back to Google's servers to check to see if you are using the most recent version of the product. As a part of this request, Google will log usage data including a timestamp of the date and time you downloaded the Google Web Toolkit and the IP address for your computer. We won't log cookies or personal information about you, and we will use any data we log only in the aggregate to operate and improve the Google Web Toolkit and other Google Services. Please see the Google Privacy Policy for more information.

Re:Another downside...

As opposed to Firefox (and right about every modern application I've used), which doesn't? It's just checking if there is an update to download. And only in the "hosted web browser" which you don't even need to use. Jeez. Paranoid.

Re:Another downside...

It must be because Microsoft adheres to the "bazaar" notion of third-party software, rather than the "cathedral" of a centrally-managed package maintainer.

Re:Another downside...

You can disable the checking for updates either as an option in about:config or as an actual compile-time option.

Re:Another downside...

It phones home, and you don't have the source, that's enough to be paranoid.

Re:The best feature of this toolkit

"I think Google is mostly responsible for launching the AJAX trend"
 
Er, nope. Hard as it is to believe, Microsoft were there first with the awesome Outlook Web Access which mimics Outlook, on a web page really, really well. This used their XMLHTTP ActiveX object which is also used extensively in Windows Update.
 
The rest happened from there really. Google is probably the best known current implementer of AJAX, but good as they are I certainly wouldn't say they launched it... and I certainly wish world + dog would stop releasing AJAX frameworks!

Nope - OWA was closed.

Sorry, but I have to give it to someone other than Microsoft. While they did essentially invent the tech behind Ajax, the only major project they used it on was basically something that was closed. I don't mean source, but not open to the public. You only saw it if you had an organization using Outlook/Exchange in the first place, which still excluded a huge majority of people using the web. Had they ported hotmail to the OWA interface, that would have been a major revolution far greater than google maps or anything else. But they didn't.

Re:The best feature of this toolkit

Microsoft might have provided the first XMLHttpRequest implementation and used it first, but it was Google that made it popular. Before Google Suggest (and later GMail) caught everybody's attention, it languished relatively unknown to most developers for years. Now you can't get away from it.

Sure, browser compatibility played a large part too, but even after Mozilla implemented XMLHttpRequest, I didn't see many people talking about it until Google started using it. So Microsoft might have launched XMLHttpRequest, but it was Google that launched the trend, which is what xbrownx said.

Re:The best feature of this toolkit

Here's a much better implementation of the same idea that's been available for some time now: http://zk1.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

It's not "beta" like this half-baked "me-too" from google, and it's open-source.Also commercial support is available it you want to pay for it.

Re:I have yet to figure out AJAX

and my brain just keeps seeing GOOGLE AJAX WEB DEVELOPMENT

Maybe we should just call it GAWD for short!

Re:I have yet to figure out AJAX

Oh Gawd No!

I forsee a couple of issues:
"Spend the whole day playing with GAWD"
"That site is mostly created by GAWD"

Re:Once again, Yahoo! is overlooked

That appears to be precanned Javascript,etc. that alot of people have done before. This is Java programming and debugging straight to 100% browser compatible HTML and Javascript. The only group larger than the google fanboy club is the google is smarter than me and i hate them club.

Yeah, right..

Yahoo has already done this

No, they haven't - at least not unless you have some other information you're not sharing.

From the Google site:

You write your front end in the Java programming language, and the GWT compiler converts your Java classes to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.

From the Yahoo link you provided:

To use a specific component from the YUI Library, include the path to that library in a <script> tag within your web page.

So, how is this the same thing?

Re:Once again, Yahoo! is overlooked

Nope, there's a big difference between these libraries.

The Y! framework still requires you to write HTML and Javascript - they just make implementing DHTML effects + AJAX less painful.

The Google framework removes the base need for HTML and Javascript authoring from the application development process entirely. Obviously you'll want to make the app look nice and need custom styling but in order to actually develop the functionality, zero HTML is needed.

As a consequence you can use the Yahoo stuff with any backend implementation language (PHP, Java, whatever) while the Google framework is limited to strictly Java. I don't mind though. :)

Re:Once again, Yahoo! is overlooked

Ohhh? Was it overlooked? [slashdot.org]

To be fair, Yahoo's is just a collection of controls and widgets to be included in a project indvidually - which has been offered by many other sites for quite a while now - while Google's promises to be a framework that takes the headache out of front-end AJAX development. Of course, in my experience "automatically generates code" and "takes the headache out of" are eventually incompatible down the line, but what do I know.

I haven't played with either yet, but they sound like two different beasts to me. The most interesting part of this to me would be to see how Google writes their web code.

I knew this would eventually happen.

Developers are tired of having to reinvent the wheel every time with dynamic components on web pages, and things like PEAR do not have all their component lib. in one centralized location like this. A developer framework for AJAX is definitely a revolutionary. It marks the move toward using web-based platforms for a greater and greater percentage of common computing functions.

I, for one...

...welcome our new buzzword-compliant overlords. MFG, all I read these days is Google, Java and/or AJAX.

Re:I, for one...

Yeah, lets bring back the good ole' days when Linx, Internet, world wide web, or microcomputer were the buzzwords of the day.

You people are look old farts complaining about the kids and their music today. Sure there are buzzwords and there is hype, but there always is, so just deal with it.

The license is restrictive.. mods prohibited

Prohibited Actions

Except for distributions for internal business and/or personal use to your employees or contractors in compliance with these Terms and Conditions, you may not distribute Google Web Toolkit Development Tools or any services or software associated with or derived from them, or modify, copy, license, or create derivative works from Google Web Toolkit Development Tools, unless you obtain Google's written permission in advance. If you wish to do any of the above, please contact us by emailing [e-mail]. You may not use the Google Web Toolkit Development Tools to develop or distribute products that violate the law or legal rights of third parties.

No, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth and why does this matter? Because I happen to prefer PHP for web development (just a personal preference). It would be nice to be able to move the JavaScript components off from the Java framework into a PHP based framework. Well, apparantly you can't do that without special permission.

BTW, the Yahoo UI Library [yahoo.com] is BSD licensed.

Re:The license is restrictive.. mods prohibited

Have your attorney review the terms -- I think you are misunderstanding them. You may not redistribute GWT itself (the actual zip files containing the GWT compiler, among other things), but you own all output from the tools. We even released the source code to the class libraries under the Apache 2.0 open source license.

GWT is available for commercial, non-commercial, and enterprise use with almost no strings attached. Please review the complete terms for details:

http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/terms.html [google.com]

Bret Taylor
Product Manager, Google Web Toolkit

Wow

I'm not into fanboyism but this is very very impressive. I took a look at the demos. The Desktop App Clone is particularly very impressive and it shows you what can be achieved with this stuff! I've never liked web development for the compatibility nightmare and plus the fact that it's a very messy business. Java with it's object oriented goodness will allow feature full applications to be developed extremely quickly!

Not included and YUI comparisons...

The oft-copied 'google suggest' dropdown stuff. It's not something demoed in the 'kitchensink' app they provide at http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/documentation/ex amples/kitchensink/ [google.com].

I agree with someone else that the Yahoo UI (yui) toolkit seems to get ignored a bit, but I think this plays to a different crowd.

1) This is a java-based thing only it seems. People writing .net can use atlas for most of these features, people using Ruby or other scripting langauges probably have bindings to scriptaculous and other libraries to handle most of this. There were/are probably Java bindings already for scriptaculous, but this makes it easier for java people already used to swing/awt stuff.

2) The YUI stuff was more javascript oriented, and, from my experience, difficult to use in some settings. I had a hard time getting the slider stuff to work as needed based solely on their code and one example page, for example. Perhaps that makes me not as l33t as some others who can debug others' javascript in their sleep - I dunno. I do know that if Google makes this easy for people to adopt, it'll take off. Partially because there's a lot of google love amongst early-adopters in the tech community, and partially because making things easy is just a good way to attract people. :)

3) With the YUI stuff, Yahoo was/is seeming to cater to the scripting crowd more (witness the native serialized PHP responses you can get back). If google is going after the "I write Java apps" crowd, they may be able to bring in a new set of people to web-app development who before now were not in the web space.

I interviewed one of the Yahoo engineers who worked on the YUI widgets release at my podcast - http://webdevradio.com [webdevradio.com] - you can get some more perspective on what Yahoo was/is doing and trying to achieve with that move.

Just some random thoughts...

Take notes all..

This is great news for all the developers out there. Google by doing this has proved once again that smart business practices and investments make a company, now how much software they patent and lock down. They specfically say that you can create applications like Google Maps and Gmail using their framework. Is someone gonna create a new Gmail or seach engine and take over Google? Prolly not, but Google has shown that not only can it develop high power applications and set the footprints for following developers, but they can also help the community advance just as they have. Just one of the many reasons I love Google.

YUI

This impressive framework promises to make AJAX available to the masses and is one more step towards Google becoming the de facto Internet platform provider."

Erm, actually they're playing catch up. From what I can tell, GWT is rather inferior to YUI [yahoo.net].

Google a Java shop?

I didn't know Google was a Java shop. Do they mainly code serverside stuff in Java these days? If so, which technology are they using (O/R mapper, servlet container, tricks & quirks). Would be interesting to know.

Any infos?

Re:Google a Java shop?

We use Java, C++, Python and a smattering of other languages for user facing stuff.
Chris

Second born...

From: http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/faq.html [google.com]

"What's the catch? Does Google own my GWT application? Do I have to run AdSense? Do I have to give Google my first-born child?

        There's no catch, we promise. See the Terms of Use for the nitty gritty details."

I checked the ToU, apparently you have to make Adsense space on your *second* born child. Premium crib space is up to eCPM of $0.42 cents too, diapers down to under 10 cents.

Very clever of them, I bet most people wouldn't check...

Yet Another Initiative to fire all the webdevs

From the top paragraph of the Google Web Toolkit [google.com] page:

JavaScript's lack of modularity makes sharing, testing, and reusing AJAX components difficult and fragile.

Beg to differ. JavaScript has just as much "modularity" as any other object-oriented language; methods like JSON [json.org] and libraries like Dojo [dojotoolkit.org], Prototype [conio.net], and the aforementioned Yahoo! Web Services APIs [yahoo.com] are proof.

Every few years there comes along Yet Another Initiative to fire all the webdevs. No disrepect to Google's engineers, who are clearly brilliant, but we've been there [microsoft.com] and done that [adobe.com]. For a good time, open up Firefox's DOM Inspector, crack into their Kitchen Sink demo [google.com], and boggle over the iframes and tables and embedded JavaScript, oh my!

back to the back button!

I haven't heard anyone comment about what I think is a great feature in this toolkit:

Browser history management:

No, AJAX applications don't need to break the browser's back button. GWT lets you make your site more usable by easily adding state to the browser's back button history.

I know this is something you can hack together if you're writing your own hand-crafted js, but this will be a nice feature -- I haven't looked at the toolkit yet, but I wonder how easy to use this will be.

Have any of the other frameworks provided this mechanism?

Raises more questions than it answers...

I wonder how difficult it will be to write degradable applications with this toolkit. The demo applications I played with do nothing at all with javascript disabled... they're just a script tag in a body tag, so they make no attempt to render the application using plain HTML. I know they're just demos, but it won't save any time if you have to develop the non-js version separately... which is a problem particularly for those of us who have to develop to accessibility standards.

Also, this is coming right on the heels of the buzz about Oracle's AJAX Framework [slashdot.org]... and of course there's the Eclipse AJAX Toolkit Framework [eclipse.org], which uses Dojo [dojotoolkit.org], Zimbra [zimbra.com], and OpenRico [openrico.org] (which in turn uses prototype [conio.net])... others have mentioned Yahoo!'s toolkit and Atlas, as well, not to mention Rails... My point is that there are suddenly a ton of frameworks that all have slightly different approaches to the whole AJAX idea. Some are higher-level, some lower; some target a specific server backend; some offer UI libraries... Any or all of these might merge or die off or be made irrelevant at any time. It's almost harder to develop AJAXy applications now than back when you had to write your own HTTP request code... sure, you can knock one out in ten minutes now, but you spend the time you saved choosing the toolset beforehand.

I think I'll wait a bit... we've put the scorpions in the box and shaken it, so let's see who survives.

echo framework anyone?

Coding your UI in java and having it translated into javascript and html without having to worry about cross browser compatibility?

Sounds familiar. It's rather like the echo framework [nextapp.com]

The big differences I see are:

1) Google toolkit advantages:
- No load on the server to render the UI. All ui code runs on the browser, so this may help server scalability.

2) Echo advantages:
- Fully open source.
- Richer set of ui components (IMO - see the demo at http://demo.nextapp.com/Demo/app [nextapp.com] )

Only thing that matters

Are they using this for their own webapps?

Remember the giant sucking sound from 2 years ago?

...when Google started vacuuming up a lot of stray Java talent? I'm thinking of folks like Josh Bloch (author of Effective Java, one of the best books I've ever read on Java) and Adam Bosworth (former CTO of BEA). I was always sort of curious about what Google was up to. I've got no proof that either of these gentlemen we involved in GWT, but I'd be surprised if they weren't. Good job, Google.

Before you get ideas of grandeur...

Note that this toolkit primarly seem to try solve the problems of browser quirks, more efficiently design web sites using AJAX, and do remote procedure calls, not really to leverage the power of Java development and its language to web developers and Javascript.

The Google Web Toolkit supports only a small fraction of the Java Standard Library and seem to be able to replicate the functionality of only a few classes through its emulation library.

This is the stuff from the Java libraries that you can use and have it be able to "translate" your work: java.lang classes [google.com] and java.util classes [google.com].

If you like Java...

I suppose that's nice if you actually like programming in Java.

I'll stick to rolling my own, thanks. I suspect I wouldn't be able to use a tool like this for more than a half hour without finding something I want to do that the toolkit doesn't support. What then? Can you edit the JavaScript output by hand or is it totally obfuscated?

Lisp Macros

I am surprised that no one has yet brought up lisp macros which can be used to develop a similar framework. Code can be written in Lisp and compiles/generates to javascript. See http://www.cliki.net/Parenscript [cliki.net] and http://www.cliki.net/jsgen [cliki.net] for implementations in common lisp. The problem I see with any form of generated javascript is that it will be hard to debug should something unexpectedly go wrong.