On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Hendy Irawan
<hendy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Most of the current work at Eclipse seems to be using GWT for the Java
to _javascript_ compiler. Do you see any way of merging the work, or
will developers have to give up GWT for benefiting from j2s? And what
are the benefits of j2s over GWT?
I didn't realize that GWT compiler "standalone" is usable. Can you give more information about this? From what I read on the net, GWT compiler generates obfuscated code, and even if the obfuscation is disabled, the generated _javascript_s are pretty much unusable from the developer standpoint. (i.e. it was built to be used by GWT internals)
>From my experience with the Flex work - there are a couple of
challenges in bringing an already written Java app: the first is in
having a compiler and the second is in having the libraries ported.
Even though the flex work had its own compiler it benefitted from
GWT's implementations for some of the JRE libraries. Perhaps the best
solution might be to use the GWT compiler and j2s's libraries for swt
- does this sound possible? Would it be hard?
It would be desirable if this is possible. That relieves Zhou from doing redundant work that Google's doing (and will continue to do in foreseeable future, I suppose) and can contribute more on e4, SWT/BE, and related projects that can benefit him and Eclipse community at large including myself. :-)
My guess is that there are limitations in both GWT's and j2s's compilers, which will prevent this from happening easily. But examining this might be worth doing.
With the large community behind GWT - its compilers limitations are definitely easy to find - the good thing is that they have been very quickly working on removing their limitations. If j2s' libraries provide more capability than what we have currently - that's great. But it might make sense for us to hear more about its limitations.
Vineet
