Fat/Thick Client vs Thin Client

Question

I have a question, I was developing a desktop web application based on a REST API in Java using Servlets and JSP, but my boss said that it's not the best way to create a web application, because servlets and JSP are working as fat/thick clients( a request to the server make the application to download all content of data not a part like GWT does) and he suggested to go with GWT because it is working as a thin client.

As I was looking on the Internet I didn't see that servlets are working as fat clients, so my question is why is better GWT than servlets?

Answer 1

GWT solves a different problem than servlets. GWT is a tool to make clients, and servlets/JSP are tools for telling servers what to send to clients.

For example, my server uses a JSP to serve a GWT client, and servlets to connect the client to my database. I use all at once! You could use just one.

You can make your GWT client arbitrarily thick or thin. You can even run a GWT application with no server at all.

Use GWT if you want a nice tool for making complex, cross-browser web apps in Java. The decision to use JSP or servlets should be made separately.