Anyone worked with GWT (Google Web Toolkit?)

Just started a fairly interesting project that uses GWT. Just wondering if anyone had seen any resources outside of Google's docs on it. Doesn't seem to be a very popular tool, but so far, I find it to be quite handy. http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/

I recently spent several days reviewing and familiarizing myself with GWT to see if it would work for a refactoring of a large dynamic website which has a considerable amount of Javascrip and Ajax. However it was my conclusion that to use GWT on our site would require a significant amount of redesign and refactoring of the site and this would be prohibitive from a time/risk POV.

Since your site already uses it, this isn't a problem for you. But meanwhile I am looking for the best way to incorporate a JS framework/toolkit. We've previously used prototype/scriptaculous, but these aren't going to cut it for our future needs. The top candidates seem to be Dojo/jQuery/ExtJS from my research.

Do you think I should reconsider my rejection of GWT as a candidate? We are a Java/JSP house, so the Java requirement of GWT shouldn't be too big of a problem.

Anyway, with regard to GWT, I was able to find a number of books available about it, but not so much as far as online resources. There are a number of tutorials (videos) if you search for them as well.

Hey, Zoomer. Thanks for the reply and welcome to Ozzu. First off, with GWT, I don't think I would take the time to do the conversion. After working with it a few weeks, I can see the benefits of ground-up use, but I think you would pretty much have to rewrite the entire application if you wanted to integrate.

As for the other question, I haven't worked with ExtJS much, but I have developed a few apps each with Dojo and JQuery. I personally recommend the latter. Dojo seems extensive on the front-end, but with JQuery, you get a light-weight core lib with numerous extensions avaiable, so the gap between the coverage of the two narrows substantially. In fact, I prefer to add the extensions I need to JQuery and avoid the extra bloat that Dojo brings.

Like yourself, I found the amount of online coverage for GWT to be lacking. That being said, JQuery still carries a rather large community, offering a lot of documentation and support. It's also easy to extend when you can't find quite what you were looking for.

Oh, and if you did choose to go with JQuery, you'd find a decent support-base here at Ozzu. You may not need assistance with your site, but if you happened to get stuck on something, there's a few heads around here who could help out.