GWTCon 2017 - Florence

1. Present and Future of GWT
from a developer perspective
Manolo Carrasco
+ManuelCarrascoMonino
@dodotis

2. About me

3. Agenda
1. A little bit of context of Vaadin and GWT
2. The Present of GWT
3. Future of GWT
4. State of the Frontend

4. FIGHT FOR SIMPLICITYthinking of U and I

5. - Vaadin is a development platform for web
applications that prioritizes ease of development
and uncompromised end user experience.
- The Vaadin platform consists of a comprehensive
set of web components, a Java web framework,
configurable themes, tools and a set of app
templates.
Vaadin

6. Architecture
Developer Space
Provided by Vaadin
JVM
Browser

7. Java Lang JVM
ecosystem
libs, IDEs ...
Developer space GWT vs Vaadin
Java Lang JVM
ecosystem
libs, IDEs ...
Scala, Groovy...

8. Millestone 3.0
IT Mill 4.0
IT Mill 5.0
2002
2007
2008
2018
2013
2009
Vaadin 6.0
Vaadin 7.0
2017
Vaadin 8.0
Vaadin 10
Vaadin: a 18y whisky

9. Next Generation Architecture

11. GWT's mission is to radically improve the web experience
for users by enabling developers to use existing Java tools
to build no-compromise AJAX for any modern browser.
GWT Mision
A high-level language allows the Developer not to miss out
on low-level details
GWT Productivity 2006

12. Innuvo
1.0.21
1.3.3 O.S
2005
2006
2007
2018
2010
2009
2.0 UIB OOPHM
2.1 MVP RF
2011
2.2 Designer
3.0 J2cl ?
GWT a 12y whisky
2012
Grid 2.4
2013
2.5 SDM
2017
2.8 J8 JSi2014
2.6 J7

13. The present of GWT

14. GWT is Popular in the Java Web
2016
2012

15. Stable Platform

16. Reliable

17. Good Tools & Ecosystem

18. High Quality and Mature

19. Fast development cycles

20. For Big Teams & Big Projects

21. But

22. High Learning Curve

23. Outdated docs

24. Obsolete Stuff
↝ Generators
↝ Widgets, Elements, JSO
↝ RPC
↝ RF
↝ AutoBeans
↝ UiBinder
↝ JSNI
↝ Classic DevMode
↝ Ant
↝ Designer

25. Project Activity Deceleration

26. A project with few Contributors

27. Unmaintained libs
GWT spring react

28. Hard to Use the Platform

29. Status of the current GWT
GWT 2.8.x
- Big artifacts (no split in modules)
- Stable & Long Term API Support
- No new Features planned
- Prepared for JS
- JsInterop stable
- Elemental2 unstable
- Large ecosystem
- 2.8 is stable and available for foreseeable future

30. Long Term Support Applications
LTS Apps

31. 2.8.x is perfect for Long Term Apps

32. - Be updated and use latest stable GWT
- Avoid legacy modules
- Most Widgets, RPC, RF, etc
- Design with UIBinder and CSS3
- Use J8 syntax, collapse browser permutations.
- Select good 3rd party libs
- Gwt-material, Gwt-bootstrap, Gwt-query
- Use JsInterop for json data or Resty-GWT
- MVP or GWTP ?
Good Practices for LTS apps in 2.8.x

33. The future of GWT

34. The Near future of GWT
GWT 2.9.x
- Modular (split in small artifacts)
- Parts might be transferred to, or taken by the community
- Expect changes and new Features in API
- Removing browsers, jsni, moving namespaces, etc
- Replacing generators with Annotation Processors
- But maintaining backwards compatibility
- Prepared for the JavaScript wild
- Stable JsInterop
- Stable Elemental-2

35. 2.9.x might be your Transition Path

36. - Use min set of modules, start with Core.gwt.xml
- Forget Classic Widgets and Element
- Replace classic DOM with Elemental2
- #useThePlatform as much as possible
- Check 3rd party modules not to import User.gwt.xml
- Design the UI using Js reusable widgets
- Web components (gwt-polymer)
- Html templates (elemento or polymer)
- Decouple business logic from UI
Best practices for the Transition

37. Inherit: the minimum stuff

38. Import: JsInterop & elemental2

39. Use UiBinder as an HTML container

40. Code: Interact with Elemental2

41. Alternatives
Since UiBinder is still thought for Widgets or Elements
and it uses generators, try:
- Elemento is a lightweight template system based
in pure HTML and Annotation Processors
- Designed with Elemental2 & jsInterop in mind
- Polymer templates
- Are evaluated in runtime with good performance
- Powerful data-binding
- You need to import manually until work in progress in
gwt-polymer

42. Frontend: State of the art

43. We are in the JavaScript Era

44. Popularity of Web Platforms

45. Huge ecosystem

46. Good dev tools in JS

47. JS also runs everywhere

48. How is GWT in this jungle

49. Lot of reactions, Is GWT Dead?

50. - Most GWT apps and webs ported to other solutions.
- Vaadin, Sencha, ArcBees... are redirecting their efforts.
- Google is moving to J2CL
- GWT-3.0 was announced in 2014 but ...
- 3 years of uncertainty that confuses and concerns the community
- Not open sourced yet, and no ETA
- No Presence of GWT in tech channels or events
- There are no GWT jobs
GWT Facts

51. GWT reasons, not valid anymore
- For the Browser (2006)
- Huge diffs between vendors (IE6)
- memory limitations (256Kb RAM PCs)
- Related with JavaScript (2006)
- No way to debug JS
- No tooling for JS optimisation and obfuscation
- No way of modularising / managing dependencies
- No IDE. No Testing tools. Slow runtime.
- Java Specific (2006)
- Same language client/server
- More developers than JavaScript

52. - The Java Language is the strong Key of using GWT
GWT reasons nowadays

53. What should GWT
developers do?

54. Embrace the JavaScript world

55. GWT 3.0 is for the frontend jungle
- New compiler and tooling
- J2CL
- Runtime JVM, Node or both?
- Build system bazel, maven, npm ?
- Big changes in API and emulated JRE
- Prepared for the platform
- JsInterop
- Elemental2
- Comes with a different DX paradigm

56. Two possible paths for J2CL
➔ Classic Java Development flow
◆ Java IDE
◆ Java dependency artifacts (.jar)
◆ Java Build tools mvn, gradle, j2cl, closure, linker
◆ JVM for server side and testing tools
➔ Just a transpiler to JavaScript
◆ Java IDE
◆ JS dependencies (.js)
◆ JS Build tools npm, closure-compiler-js
◆ node-js for server side
◆ JS testing tools

57. A java transpiler in the JS world
NODE
ECOSYSTE
M
npm,gulp,*.js
,
Java IDE
mvn, jar,
Java IDE
JVMJAVA NODE
npm, gulp,
*.js,
Java IDE
JAVA

58. Thanks
manolo@vaadin.com
+ManuelCarrascoMonino
@dodotis