I personally think that GWT is a great tool. It might be hard to get into it but once you're gaining some confidence you have all the benefits of a high level language and you don't have to use JavaScript if you want but you still can.
However, I like that fact that I can program my application in Java using e.g. Eclipse. I also think that the Super Dev Mode is quite neat and that the framework has a lot of stuff that can make your life easier e.g. the server client communication can be handled inside one Eclipse instance using just another shared Java project - I think this is awesome and I don't understand why anybody would prefer a library that forces me to write JavaScript when I have the alternative of writing a lot of that stuff using Java and compile it to JavaScript.
But on the other hand it appears that GWT dies a very silent, slow death e.g. if you take a look at Google Trends:
(See current results here: link)
I've spend the last days trying to create a GWT project in Eclipse and I had to struggle with quite a few things. There seems to be no easy way to create a simple modular GWT project. The only way was using gwt-maven-archetypes plugin; but this has its drawbacks too e.g. I now have to start the Codeserver and the Tomcat server from two separate Maven commands and Eclipse does not seem to kill the Codeserver if one presses the stop-button (at the moment I have to kill it using the task manager). Another thing is that the GWT Designer has also been discontinued and is not available for GWT 2.7.0 in Eclipse anymore.
That being said, I am having a hard time to decide if I should go for GWT. In my case this would bring to me that benefit of having a setup like this:
- Android App (Java)
- Database Server / RESTful API [Java (Hibernate / Spring)]
- Shared Libraries (Java - of course)
- GWT Web Application (Java - what else?)
but on the other hand I can see how fast one can work with AngularJS. Not even to mention that Google must have dropped the GWT project for a reason too.
So I was hoping that somebody who has experience with both frameworks who has switched from GWT to AngularJS or the other way around could share his or her experience with me or us. In addition I would be glad to hear some convincing arguments why to chose one over the other - I know stackoverflow does not allow opinion-based questions but (in my opinion *huehuehue*) one should be able to objectively separate those frameworks.
Thank you for your answers!
28.02.2018
