Product Description

If you're a web developer, you know that you can use Ajax to add rich, user-friendly, dynamic features to your applications. With the Google Web Toolkit (GWT), a new Ajax tool from Google that automatically converts Java to JavaScript, you can build Ajax applications using the Java language.

GWT in Practice is an example-driven, code-rich book designed for web developers already familiar with the basics of GWT who now want hands-on experience. After a quick review of GWT fundamentals, GWT in Practice presents scores of handy, reusable solutions to the problems you face when you need to move beyond "Hello World" and "proof of concept" applications. This book skips the theory and looks at the way things really work when you're building. I also shows you where GWT fits into the Enterprise Java Developer's toolset. Written by expert authors Robert Cooper and Charlie Collins, this book combines sharp insight with hard-won experience. Readers will find thorough coverage of all aspects of GWT development from the basic GWT concepts to in depth real world example applications.

The first part of the book is a rapid introduction to the GWT methodology The second part of the book then delves into several practical examples which further demonstrate core aspects of the toolkit The book concludes by presenting several larger GWT applications including drag and drop support for UI elements, data binding, processing streaming data, handling application state, automated builds, and continuous integration.

Along the way GWT in Practice covers many additional facets of working with the toolkit. Various development tools are used throughout the book, including Eclipse, NetBeans, IDEA, Ant, Maven, and, of course, the old fashioned command line. The book also addresses integrating GWT with existing applications and services along with enterprise and team development.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #455328 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-12
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 380 pages

About the Author
Robert Cooper is a JEE developer with 15 years of web development experience. He is a contributor to several open source projects, including the ROME RSS/Atom API plugins for Podcasting and MediaRSS, is the author of the FeedPod text-to-speech podcasting system, and the gwt-maven plugins for supporting Maven based builds for Google Web Toolkit.

Customer Reviews

A great book on software development as well as GWT
For starters: I am one of the pilot developers in my company (a large Fortune 100 Financial Institution) doing GWT development. We are about to release our first product to the business. So I've spent the last 18 months or so learning and beating my way through GWT. In the process, I've bought all the GWT books that are out there. Straight to the point: this is the best one out there. Period. Cooper & Collins have produced an excellent book on User Interface development for the next generation....and you get an outstanding understanding of basic and advanced principles in GWT. Plenty of good stuff for the beginner as well as someone who claims to be fairly advanced. GWT in Action by Rob Hanson used to be my favorite...it still has a soft spot for being the first real GWT book, and a great reference book. Collins & Cooper have managed have the same energy that David Geary has in GWT Solutions (which is lofty praise if you've ever seen David speak about GWT!). I really like Dewsbury's GWT Applications, but GWT in Practice is actually better. There are 3 other GWT books (can't remember their names because they're at home), the 2 black and yellow ones and the flower book...I really like GWT in Action better. I've used gwittir, which is a binding framework from Cooper & Collins, so when I saw that they had written a book, I was psyched. In this day and age when book sales gotta be tough because of all the info on the internet, I was glad to see a book that I didn't think was just a rehashing of what's out there online. Good stuff guys...crank out a new version when GWT 1.5 is fully baked and I'll buy it!

GWT in Practice - Excellent Resource
My first thought upon reading the first few chapeters of this book was "Where was this thing when I started to use GWT a few months ago?" The authors have done an excellent job really showing how to use the Google Web Toolkit. My eternal fear when I read these books is that there won't be any content outside of what the product already ships with. Not so in this case at all.

The authors cover the GWT basics, to be sure, but more importantly, they demonstrate a way to really use GWT. They hit upon one of my thoughts when first trying to get my head around GWT: GWT is not a framework; it is a platform at best. They recognize this and help you work with the power and around the limitations of GWT.
The authors demonstrate common patterns and practices in the "language" of GWT. It was extremely satisfying to finally, with the help of this book, be able to articulate and execute all the patterns that I've been using in other systems, (e.g. MVC, PropertyListeners, etc.)

The authors also demonstrate how to use GWT in a variety of environments and build system. These concepts were useful, but I found myself skimming over pages at a time to get back to the "good stuff." (This was my primary knock in not giving it five stars.)

All in all, I highly recommend and I'll be ensuring that my team each learn the concepts presented.

Poor Editing, mediocre book
I am surprised to hear so much lofty praise for this book. It is mediocre at best, and the editing is quite horrible. Here the advice I would give the authors and in particular the editors:

- I hate having to flip from one chapter to the previous one in order to find a particular snippet being referenced. If you are starting a project, all the source for that needs to be close to each other. I dislike being told 'Go find table 1.1, (with no page number given) and use the code from there.
- The code examples given clearly have NEVER been through the compiler. There are missing methods in examples, and silly typos that are quite unacceptable since it leads me to question the effort put into creating the book. (see page 52, listing 2.12 for example, - Private is NOT the same as private. setInitDisplay is never defined. )
- My preference - and probably for a number of other people - is to use the well defined hello world approach, rather than a discourse on how configuration is to be set up. Eclipse should be introduced earlier. I'm sure others would disagree, but getting a HelloWorld going gets my blood flowing
- The section on design patterns is a TOTAL waste. Please dont introduce examples that focus on MVC, not GWT. I am not reading GWT to understand how MVC works. Make simpler examples that gets rid of this fluff, and focusses on GWT.
- How exactly does showing what StringBuffer looks like in pretty & obfuscated mode help the user? It looks like an attempt to pad the size of the book

Manning books are always a hit and miss. THis is a clear miss. Really, the editors need to pull up their socks and get things out right, not get it out quick.