The Google Web Toolkit was presented at last nights Twin Cities Java User Group and I have to say it seems like a very impressive framework. It basically abstracts the entire UI (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) into your Java code. It also AJAX-enables the application using a proprietary binary remoting protocol. Google’s tagline for the toolkit is that it “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.”

Although it does seem like a very well thought out framework, I don’t think I’d want to use it for many applications. Because the UI is in Java code, you end up with a ton of code for setting up your layout. You could argue that since you don’t have HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files to worry about, the increase in code size is justified, but I don’t really think that’s true. You can hire a different caliber of developer to do those things, so with the GWT, you end up having to pay a Java developer to do things that a less expensive resource could have done. In addition, a simple UI change could end up being very costly and time consuming because it involves a lot more than just tweaking an HTML or CSS file.

For a developer who doesn’t know web UI very well or is experienced with Swing-type layouts this could be a great solution, but if you’re on a team with designers and front-end developers, it doesn’t seem like a great fit. It might be a better fit if you were developing an application like Google Maps where the layout is very simple (if repetitive) and it needs to incorporate a lot of AJAX functionality.

GWT is definitely cool and I plan on watching where Google can take it in the future.