[Cialug] java web toolkits

[carl-olsen at mchsi.com]

Another option is to load all the data into JavaScript arrays and simply use DHTML to make it look like the page is using AJAX.  Of course, it all depends on the amount of data you have.

Carl

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Matthew Nuzum" <newz at bearfruit.org>
>
> On Dec 12, 2007 6:06 AM, Dave Weis <djweis at internetsolver.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I've got a large webapp that I have written using Struts. I'm putting in
> > new features and would like to have some new features like having one
> > dropdown box repopulate choices based on the selection in a different
> > box, etc. Is it worthwhile to try and shoehorn a full toolkit like GWT
> > into my functional app or just manually do the javascript to accomplish
> > what I want.
> >
> 
> We kind of went through this discussion in the PHP users group meeting a few
> months ago... the question can be boiled down to, "Is it worth while to use
> a framework?"
> 
> The answers were varied, but (correct me if I'm wrong) can be summarized as:
> 
>  * It's usually quicker to just write the code, but
>  * Investing the time to learn a framework pays off in the end (I found
> Tony's presentation to be especially convincing)
> 
> The frameworks we were talking about were PHP/RoR/Django but I think this
> conversation is equally suited to ajaxy toolkits as well.
> 
> So if you think you'll have to do several things like this, pick a toolkit
> and learn it. If you don't do this kind of stuff often, just write the code.
> 
> I won't comment on GWT specifically since I've only evaluated it. However,
> if you like writing java more than you like writing javascript it seems like
> a good choice.
> -- 
> Matthew Nuzum
> newz2000 on freenode