The JavaRanch GWT in Action Review

Dietrich Kappe, Thursday, July 26, 2007 @ 5:51 am

After reading a comment at Ajaxian on my GWT in Action review, I thought I'd mosey on over to the JavaRanch to read their, presumably, harsh review and see why I had totally missed the boat on this book. Well, not so harsh, as it turns out:

I felt that the book was trying to reach too broad an audience. For beginners without an understanding of JavaScript/HTML/DOM, I think it is overwhelming. The book provides "what's new in GWT 1.4", but the book is overkill for someone already using GWT. Most of the time the book treats what happens under the hood of GWT as magic and other times it becomes important. This switching of focus is a bit confusing.

Fair enough. Would this book be on point for a beginner? Maybe not. It's hard for me to say, since I'm not really a beginner in all of these domains. The book is trying to hit a broad audience, and from the preface (since I've started reviewing books, I always read the preface) they say they are targeting everyone from JavaScript developers, to Java server-side developers, to web designers. They add that the reader should have a good understanding of Java classes and packages. That seems to narrow it down to Java developers again. Unlike the authors, I don't think that Java and the use of Eclipse is something you can just sort of pick up as you read along.

Still, I do think the book is a good one. This is not just another Java package or framework; this is a whole new way of writing apps in the browser and the subject is expansive and complex. The book just reflects that -- it isn't just 600 pages of pictures, white space and padding. Could the examples have been more useful and relevant to typical webapp developers? Sure. I point that out in my review, but even with that flaw, I found the book very useful. And in all fairness, focusing on implementing a full-on Spring/Hibernate backend to the GWT app would have easily doubled the size of the book, larded in lots of unnecessary technologies, and given the critics (many of whom are disgruntled JavaScript programmers) even more ammunition.

Some readers will have noted that publish generally positive reviews. That's not because I'm a shill for the publishers, but rather that I put really awful books down pretty early in the process. Generally, books for which I end up publishing reviews are interesting and worth reading. For bad books, I could summarize my review in one sentence: don't waste your time. I guess maybe I should publish a list of the tech books that suck; that could be a long list.

Technorati Tags: ajax, book review, gwt

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