Friday, June 11, 2010

New GWT 2 Development book: Essential GWT

I recently had the opportunity to be one of the technical editors for the book Essential GWT: Building for the Web with Google Web Tookit 2.

Some of the topics in the book are:



Getting started 

  • Some background on GWT, what it is, etc.
  • Understanding the tools you will need while developing with GWT such as Eclipse
  • Client side code vs server side code
  • OOPHM, compiler options, GWT application layout.
 Client Side Coding
  • User interface programming
  • Form designing using HTML, XML, UiBinder.
  • Other GWT packages such as ExtGWT
Server Communications
  • Remote Procedure Calls 
  • Communicating with other serivces like XML and JSON
  • Sending and receiving files
Building rich internet applications
  • Integrating JavaScript and calling it from GWT
  • Exception handling
  • Using other services and APIs such as Google search, Yahoo search
  • Internationalization (i18n) and Localization (i10n)
  • Testing your GWT app with Junit and test cases
I really enjoyed being a technical editor for this book.  The author Federico Kereki did a great job covering just about every topic you would need to create a powerful GWT application.

There were a couple of topics that were not covered in much detail, but I find they are things that I use in my daily GWT development:
1. Building ANT tasks that can automate your build process.  I have built scripts that compile server side code, gwt code and deploy to my Tomcat server of choice.  
2. Using GWT app engine with your GWT application.  You can either pay to have Tomcat hosting on the internet or you can use GWT app engine to host your GWT project for free.

I highly recommend this book, you can pickup a copy from Amazon:



10 comments:

James said...

I have this book on pre-order at amazon. I am looking forward to what it has to offer. One of my responsibilities at work is to maintain and add features to an existing GWT application. I am surprised by the lack of community support for such a fantastic toolkit! We need a community like jquery!

Jim said...

GWT is a really great toolkit, and it is constantly getting new features and enhancements. I typically use the GWT group or dig into the GWT documentation as necessary to figure out how to use new features.
Are there specific areas in GWT that you feel are not addressed very well?

Newton Particle said...

Any idea when the book is to be released?

Jim said...

I am checking with the publisher now for an exact date.

Jim said...

I just spoke with the publisher, the Essential GWT will be available on Tuesday Aug-10-2010.

Jim said...

My copy of this book arrived yesterday in the mail.

Jonas Laursen said...

@Hathaway Did you have time to check out the book? I'm thinking about buying it too, but I'm not sure if it's worth it when gwt 2.1 is close to being released.

Jim said...

The book is great if you are not currently familiar with GWT 2.0. As far as waiting for a GWT 2.1 book there are only a couple of new things that this book does not cover that are part of GWT 2.1

These new features include:
1. Data Presentation Widgets
2. MVP Framework
3. Server-side Speed Traces

Essential GWT does cover MVP (as of GWT 2.0) and also covers client side speed traces. I would expect the the server side traces are very similar.

The obvious thing here that is missing is the 'Data Presentation Widgets' that you will find in GWT 2.1.

disclaimer: I was one of the technical editors of the book.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is getting started with GWT 2.0 or someone who has not yet tried all the features of GWT 2.0 and would like to learn as much as possible.

Anonymous said...

This is the best book on GWT I have read.

Jim said...

At the time I reviewed this book I had been using GWT for some time. I really learned a lot from this book and continue to use what I have learned in my newer GWT projects.