google web toolkit
After writing the previous entry I learned about the Google Web Toolkit (GWK), which is interesting and should be noted here. It provides two interesting things:
- A compiler that compiles Java code into JavaScript code, including Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) which will be translated into the AJAX technique I talked about yesterday. Java code is easier to write and much easier to test and debug than JavaScript code, thus the GWK can help substantially in speeding up coding.
- A Graphical User Interface (GUI) similar to the standard Java ones, that translates into JavaScript and CSS code. The latter is less useful for game development, as it leads to a GMail-style interface, which is too office-like to be fun. It’s very cool for developing, for example, game administration tools, however.
For fast development of a game, this GWK might thus be quite interesting, although it is not very useful when using an applet to have a 3D game. Or perhaps a combination would be useful, but what elements of the user interface would you not integrate in the applet? Probably everything that is not part of the core game, but for players in general - organisational issues, statistics, etc.
Add comment September 25th, 2006