Any good tips for a PHP programmer starting a GWT project?

Question

Coming from PHP with some Java Struts 2.0 experience any tips/tricks on learning GWT? I have been looking at some tutorials but just wanted to know if anyone has some great gems to pass along?

Answer 1

Nothing beats Google's GWT quickstart (IMO):

http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/gettingstarted.html

Answer 2

I agree with karim79. Also add this to your list: http://examples.roughian.com/

Answer 3

As someone that has done PHP, Struts2 and GWT, a good tips from me for someone that is coming from web framework like Struts2.0/PHP would be:

1. Throw away the old mindset, the mindset that a web framework works in request-response way. That's not how GWT works. GWT is a full ajax framework. Get a good understanding of AJAX and throw away those old mindset to get a good grasps of GWT.
2. Think in application development and not website development. That would affect the way you build navigation in your application with GWT.
   • You are not building hyperlinks to navigate between html pages, but you are using an event listener to update a partial content in your application. Get a good understanding of this.
   • With that in mind, always remember that you are not throwing back full html pages, but just updating a partial content in your application
3. Get a good understanding of Java anonymous class and inner class because you will use this alot in GWT. This is something that is used rarely if you are building with Struts2.0
4. The last tips would be to learn how to organize your code. If you can do it from beginning, please do so. Because you can write everything in one class if you want to. A good tip would be to take a look at this video on best practice on GWT.

Answer 4

GWT developers still need good HTML and CSS skills. It is sometimes useful to build up chunks of HTML on the client or server side (performance, skinning etc.) and not build every part of your GUI using GWT Widget trees in Java code.

Our framework (GWT Portlets) will help you structure your application. It includes a simple demo application in its own directory that you can copy to start a project.