GWT and .NET

Question

Hi,

How can I use GWT together with Visual Studio to create an ASP.NET website? If it is possible.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can use GWT to generate the client side code writing in Java and use asp.net for the back end.

It's a little trickier as you won't get the serialization across the wire for free that you'd get from using Java on the back end too.

I wouldn't really recommend this approach it's bound to be a hassle to maintain.

I'd recommend using a good javascript toolkit instead, such as jquery and jquery UI.

Answer 2

A similar approach is to use Script# which requires only the use of C# instead of JS for client side code.

I tried it myself and I didn't like it, because at the time the code was inline with the HTML.

But it seem that the upcoming version of ASP.NET (already available as Beta) has new approaches to fight disadvantages that ASP.NET had in comparison to Java+GWT.

Answer 3

GWT can be used with any back end with a little work. Out of the box it uses a servlet container but you don't need to keep this container. The key item in the container is the script tag to load the GWT compiled code, for example:

<script language='javascript' src='com.abaqus.gwt.GeoApp.nocache.js'></script>

GWT takes it from there and is at this point independent of the back-end if you want it to be. The one are that is a source of confusion is the GWT RPC. This does not need to be used as GWT supports general JSON request support. .NET integration using JSON discussed here:

http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thread/thread/9e1c82cd67e2f27b?hl=en

There are also projects that are tying GWT RPC to .NET see:

http://code.google.com/p/gwtrpcnet/

GWT is used pretty successfully with a number of back-ends other than Java servlets so as hassles, other than working out the details of initial setup there shouldn't be many. Even debugging in Eclipse should work (yes .NET'rs will need to use Eclipse to debug)

Answer 4

I've published an example at www.cromoteca.com/en/blog/gwt-asp-net-proxy. I use NetBeans or Eclipse to write GWT code and Visual Studio for the server part. My example include a servlet proxy that connects the two development environments so that you can use GWT dev mode with the real server code written in ASP.NET. It's up to you to choose a data format to send data to the client, I chose JSON since it's already available in both .NET and GWT.