GWT not all that DIY

In the last few years the way that I have done web design, and the way professionals do web design has changed. Back in the past the attitude was “do whatever it takes, and forget about tomorrow.” Now, increasingly we try to do things right (as in follow the rules of the languages we are writing in) because we have realised that this method actually works better.

Recently google has launched their google web toolkit (GWT), which promises to make development of complex web applications easier and quicker for programmers. Well for java programmers anyway. Basically this new tool will let programmers write code in java which will then magically be transformed in to cross browser friendly javascript. To a java developer who doesn’t want the hassle of learning the quirks of javascript, or more importantly the quirks of browsers and the user interface this must sound great. After all this lets a developer stay cosy in the realm they know while deploying code to the messy world of the web browser.

In fact, the almost unstated assumption is that you don’t want to get your hands dirty with Javascript or HTML: just let the toolkit handle all that junk!

heyblog

Recently Yahoo released their yahoo design pattern library and yahoo ui library, which look at the way people use the internet and then supplies cross browser friendly javascript to help make that usable web. The YUI library expects you to write some of the javascript yourself, it also therefore expects you to understand the language you are working in. If you want to write javascript you have to understand javascript, and the environment it works in.

Yahoo takes the approach that it’s a messy problem that is best approached by speaking the browser’s native languages directly.

The circle panel

When I look at the Yahoo design pattern library I get the feeling that yahoo actually cares about making the experience as good as possible for the user. When I look at the GWT I get the feeling that google is trying to make the experience as good as possible for the developer. The widgets and controls, for example that GWT outputs just do not seem to be designed with thought for how the user might desire to interact.

I will wait until I start to look at some web apps written using GWT, but from the code I have seen so far I also have concerns over the accessibility of the code which is going to be spat out. Is it going to be unobtrusive? Degradeable? Are we going to be able to adjust it to make the web app work better for different user groups and modes of access?

Javascript is part of the user interface, and I just can’t help but think that it should be led by the UI team, not the server side team