Vaadin is not GWT. Vaadin makes use of GWT as the browser presentation component. There is a lot more within vaadin that is not GWT.
Vaadin is a web application framework which presents and integrated perception to the programmer unifying the server and client components. Vaadin is architected with a subset of web application possibilities in mind and it is very good when used within that subset. There are too many other web applications whose architecture cannot fit into vaadin's constraints. Therefore, listing vaadin directory elements as generally useable GWT widgets would be misleading because to use vaadin widgets, you would have to use them in a vaadin application, which in turn locks you from the freedom to control your presentation and how the server communicates with the browser. Once you start with Vaadin, it is very difficult to escape out of the bounds of Vaadin's integrated server-client constraints. To many, this is an advantage, because such programmers want to see a unified picture between server and browser. However, for many who are too aware of the differences between the server and client and wish to control them separately by acquiring control of the communication process between server & client, vaadin presents too many obstacles. It is difficult to use vaadin to construct a mashed application set. It is difficult to use vaadin to construct a site mashed from facebook, twitter, youtube, yahoo elements as well as under GAE constraints. It is difficult to access the http request and response objects and under GAE such is a rather painful constraint. Which means, I do not have full control of the presentation layer. Because I have to accept that the presentation layer is due to both client and server components, I have no control over the responsiveness of the presentation elements on the browser. I have been using smart-gwt with vanilla GWT as long as I ensure a clear dichotomy between smart-gwt and vanilla gwt widgets, and even succeeded in extending some smart-gwt widgets to be used within UIBinder. However, I found it really difficult in using other frameworks to work with vaadin and the process of writing wrappers did not work very well for me. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Web Toolkit" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-web-toolkit?hl=en.
