summer experiment: GWT & python for a trading game- arch question

Question

Hi,

As a summer learning experiment, I'm thinking of coding up a web front end for a trading game i wrote in python, that generates share prices and random snippets of text.

I am sort of struggling with how this should work on the back-end though. I'd rather have my GWT client page interact with the python share price generator, than to try and re-code it in java. I suppose i could use an sqlite db, and then use jdbc to pick up the prices, but i was wondering if there is a better way, for me to be able to poll some python script either from my client page, or from the serverside java code ?

I found this python wrapper, but i'm not sure how i could use it though: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/dev/gviz_api_lib.html

Thanks.

Answer 1

Make no mistake, GWT is a Java technology. You could perhaps interoperate by using Jython to compile your Python code but your UI will basically need to be written in Java (wrappers are second class citizens here). The reason is that the RPC protocol is proprietary and even though GWT is open I believe the compiler that takes the Java source and creates the Javascript (including the RPC calls) isn't.

With Python you might be better off using an RIA Javascript framework like Yahoo UI (YUI), ExtJS, etc. Uki also looks interesting. To give you an example of Uki, here is google Wave layout in 100 lines of Javascript.

Answer 2

I second @cletus' recommendation to go for real javascript plus a JS framework (though as the framework I'd suggest any of jquery, dojo, or google closure -- sorted in order from low to high "formality" -- but I guess that's a question of taste).

If you want a Python-based GWT-like approach, try pyjamas -- but it's not as rich and mature as GWT, so, unless your browser-side needs are really very modest, JS + framework is just a better approach.

Answer 3

Yes you can. Using JSON, you can basically use whatever back-end language you want with GWT. See this page for more detail.

GWT is a powerful tool but nonetheless a complicated one. If you take the time to learn how to use it efficiently, you'll be rocking your way through building you front-end code. You'll also find the Google plugin for Eclipse to be quite a joy.