ExtGWT, SmartGWT performance

Question

As far as I've read, it seems these frameworks are all serve-side, so all the Javascript code is generated in the server. Does these frameworks generate Javascript code easily to cache on client-side? It seems to me that as all code is generated in the server, it may be a problem when using apps developed this way on websites having a lot of requests.

Answer 1

Not correct. The only mainstream GWT framework that is all server side is Vaadin. ExtGWT generates the entire UI in JavaScript during the compilation process, the only server side code is the RPC code. Same goes for SmartGWT, although it does a little bit more on the server side in regards to data presentation.

I do not want to criticize Vaadin, but I am not a big fan of any framework where a lot of user interactions in the UI results in a round trip to synchronize state with the server and get UI updates from the server, rather than running JavaScript on the client (although Vaadin has been getting better in that respect). Might work ok on a local LAN, but I have deployed applications to locations where the round trip latency was 1.8 sec (satellite connection to a remote oil field on Sakhalin island) and this style of application would fail big time.

PS: Note that the above usually starts flame wars, so let me state in advance that it is only my opinion, I am sure Vaadin, ASP.NET, JSF et al work great for you.