Your comments
Great to see the demo from Colin about GWT 3, the J2CL stuff. He showed a running small webapp written in GWT 2.x and the same webapp compiled and running by J2CL...
Today presentation from Colin would be interesting for you... 2.8.2 is in a full development, please see the commits in GitHub. 2.9 and 2.10 would be the next. GWT 3 == J2CL still not finished yet, and some tools still missing but we have seen J2CL in action.
In your position I would refactor the monolith structure into Micro UIs. It is always tough to have to migrate the whole thing at one time. This is also the advantage of Microservice architecture. See the presentation of Alberto today about TURDUCKEN. When you already have the microservice structure you can migrate as you go.
<quote>... and that is a hard sell if you need to develop software now.</quote>
If you need to do it now, just take GWT 2.8.x, you have some nice UI frameworks on the top like: GwtBootstrap3, GwtMaterialDesign, Sencha GXT, Vaadin (ok, this has a server-side part), Errai, ... They work now. So I'm not sure whether I understand you correctly? Or maybe you need a framework which is supported by big companies like Google, Facebook? Google still uses GWT. Eclipse Che uses GWT too (http://www.eclipse.org/che/docs/assemblies/sdk-parts/index.html).
I think the question is more something like "I would like to join the JavaScript hype" or stay in Java with all those pros for Java.
These discussions about JSweet and GWT could be interesting for you:
Agree with you. My point is that it seems that GWT does not have enough ressources. IMHO it is better to focus on few things and make it very good instead of doing a lot of things and all of them are not up-to-date. Maintaining plugins for IntelliJ, Eclipse is eating your ressources. Therefore make all based on Maven is easier to be up-to-date. At the end the community and some companies need to get the job done.
To your point: UI framework like Bootstrap, Material Design, etc: yes this should be seperated from GWT project like today. Still I think project like GWT Starter is a very good starting point for GWT. Today you need to come with nice design to be able to attract developers and GWT internal, standard design is just too old.
Diogo,
I agree with you that GWT does not help a lot for someone who wants to start. Some points:
- The documentation is not easy to understand, please read my thread on the documentation topic
- You have two Maven plugins,
- You need to use other UI frameworks to make a good looking UI (GwtBootstrap3, GWTMaterial Design, ...)
IMO, we don't need to have plugins for Eclipse and IntelliJ, we just need Maven (and maybe Gradle) starter and also something like Spring Initializr (https://start.spring.io). Luckily we have this one GWT Project Generator:
https://gwt-project-generator.cfapps.io
But it is not easily to find.
The source of all is the documentation, please read my thread on documentation.
I'm writing some articles in heise.de Developer. heise.de is the biggest IT publisher in Germany. Examples (all in German language):
- Java as Universal Programming Language: https://goo.gl/eSzzbt
- GWTCon 2017: https://goo.gl/M3Y7Pj
I will also write an article about the conference itself. IMHO we need to publish, publish and publish... I tried to give a talk at JavaLand 2018 but my talked was not accepted. Hope that someone from GWT gets accepted.
One thing definitely needs a change is the documentation! See my thread about the documentation.
We are only using RESTful in our GWT projects, RestyGWT. IMHO today you have to offer APIs in your systems and using RESTful you can support both your APIs and your GWT clients.
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Yes, Microservice and Micro UI are the way to go, see my slides and my blog. Rewriting everything without thinking of the value is waste of time and resources.