http/AJAX (GWT) vs Eclipse gui for thin client deployment

Question

I am starting a project for which we will have a thin client, sending requests and getting responses from a server.

We are still in the planning stages, so we have a choice to settle on either an Eclipse based GUI (Eclipse plugin) or using GWT as a fromtend for the application.

I am not very familiar with Eclipse as a GUI (Nor with GWT) but do know 'normal' Java.

What would be the main benefits and drawbacks of either approach?

Edit: Addressing the questions posed:

• The project, if Eclipse based, would be using the core Eclipse gui (No coding tools, just bare bones) and the GUI would be packaged with it.
• I have been looking at GWT and so far seems the best choice, but still have some research to do.
• Communication method is a variant of CORBA (In house libraries)

Answer 1

Coming from someone who has just as much experience as you do (haven't developed any Eclipse based plugins or anything with GWT), this is purely an opinion from another set of eyes on your problem.

Purely from the standpoint of this application being served from a thin client, I would think GWT would fit the bill for this situation a bit better. It would certainly be a bit lighter and would not require the overhead that an Eclipse Plugin would.

I also think this would make deploying updates a lot easier.

Answer 2

If you are thinking of using Eclipse to build a standalone client or a plugin that's just added to an existing Eclipse install, how are you planning to communicate with your server?

Our team tried building an Eclipse Rich Client Platform application and having that communicate with a J2EE EJB-based middle tier over RMI, and that worked pretty well, except for when we got to security and couldn't use any of the standard J2EE security patterns to create a login on the Eclipse client that would authenticate against the server.

This seems to be a known issue in Eclipse circles, but I haven't seen anything thats a good solution for it.

GWT seems pretty advanced for what it is, and there's several IDEs that added tooling for working with it, but I have no first hand experience developing with it. Everything that I have seen in terms of demos and examples makes it look really powerful and easy to use.

So my basic point is, Eclipse is an exciting platform, but you will face difficulties which you might have to solve yourself. GWT seems to be an easier alternative for now.