GWT Becomes Open Source

GWT (Google Web Toolkit), an open source Java software development framework from Google has been released as an Open Source Project. It's under license of Apache 2.0.

Google introduced GWT last May as a free development framework for writing AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) Web applications in the Java language. The toolset features a debugging browser and a Java-to-JavaScript compiler. You write your front end in the Java programming language, and the GWT compiler converts your Java classes to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.

Here are some features from GWT (taken from GWT's official web page):

* Dynamic, reusable UI components

* Really simple RPC

* Browser history management

* Real debugging

* Browser compatible

* JUnit integration

* Internationalization

* Interoperability and fine-grained control

* Completely Open Source

With the introduction of Java 6 which includes scripting features, i think this two apps will be a great combination in the future. You can use Java as the front-end application and use scripting languages to dynamically update your application real-time.