Based upon your search criteria, it would seem that learning Flex is more marketable and therefore would be a better choice.
However, if you are interested in creating solutions that are easier to code, easier to maintain and easier to integrate (when coming from a Java background), GWT is a better choice. That's not intended to sound illogical, that's the nature of the market today. Flex has a lot of buzz, always has. It's perceived as one of the sexy, highly styled UI web toolkits...and in the hands of an expert, you can create nice looking web UI's. But it is just a tool and in the hands of an amateur, equally amateurish results will follow. GWT "suffers" from two key points (IMHO). One, it's targeted at the Java developer. People like you. Boring, non-innovative Java developers who only know how to do servers and only get excited about connection pools and OR Maps (tongue in cheek here...) "Java" developers don't know how to create UI's and so a tool that allows the Java developer to create web UI's can't be good. The second point is related to the first. The hard core Javascript guys have been downtrodden and second-class citizens for years. Now with AJAX and the mature libraries that are out there, they've got some time in the spotlight. They're a scrappy bunch, that really know their stuff, and GWT threatens that existence. "Surely GWT's compiler can't write Javascript as tight as mine"....that's the mentality. I speak from direct experience...I've written 100's of thousands of lines of Javascript. But if you're exposed to (or go back to your roots) a mature development environment, where real object oriented development patterns are primary, good design is key, but great maintainability, debuggability and team synergy due to language homogony is paramount, GWT because it's foundation is Java, is a killer. Flex is a bit of an anomally, it's not Javascript really, but it's not Java based either. When it comes down to what the choice is it's simple: is it valuable to your development process to have a second language stack in your solution? If your server side is Java, your client side is either Javascript or Flex (is it still called Actionscript, it's been a while). Or you write your server in Java AND your client in Java, and allow your compiler to optimize the client code to it's application container...that's what GWT does. Plain and simple. So if your criteria is job marketability and what you should learn, both are the wrong choice. Look for AJAX in the job descriptions, there will be zillions. They will require you to have deep domain knowledge of Javascript, along with CSS and HTML, plus a solid understand of JSON and the whole response/request methodology that XMLHTTP uses. You should also plan on getting very familiar with a number of the big libraries, like JQuery, YUI, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Rico, etc... You'll also need to know all the various ways that IE 6, IE 7 & IE 8 are different than Firefox 2, 3 and Safari are different and how you code for all of these various browsers. My opinions, not even worth .02 USD, but there you have it..... Later, Shaffer On Jan 8, 2:56 pm, j2ee_nyc <success...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I am a J2EE developer. I am looking to learn and apply the AJAX > technology at work and gain a skill that will help me in my career > going forward. > > I am trying to understand the level of maturity of the GWT framework > for the entrprise development and how it compares with Adobe Flex > framework if one wants to build production-ready enterise web > applications while utilizing J2EE technologies (Spring/Hibenate/JSP/ > JSF) for the middle-tier/server side. > > On one hand, I see a lot of posts here where many developers praise > GWT as a great UI technology. On the other hand, when I do a search on > Dice.com for GWT jobs in New York, NY for the past 30 days, I see only > 14 jobs that mention GWT and way over a hundred jobs that mention > Adobe Flex. > > It's a very rough test, but can we assume that Flex is more marketable > and more in demand on the job market as a UI/AJAX tehcnology? What do > you think is the outlook for GWT vs Flex for the rest of 2009? > > Thanks --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To post to this group, send email to Google-Web-Toolkit@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-web-toolkit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
