With all of the excitement around Google Developer Day, we didn't have a chance to tell you about a subtle point regarding the launch of the Google Mashup Editor: the editor's front-end was built using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). Given that, we invited Rich Burdon, Tech Lead of the Google Mashup Editor team, to write a post detailing why they chose to develop using GWT. Here's Rich:
At Google Developer Day, we launched the Google Mashup Editor -- a quick way to build simple applications. The Mashup Editor lets you create mashups without having to do much coding; instead, you use standard HTML and extended tags, which correspond to UI controls that can display and manipulate RSS, Atom and GData feeds.
The product consists of three parts:
Before starting the project, our team already had a lot of experience building complex AJAX applications by hand -- and had experienced many of the problems associated with this approach. Here are some of the reasons why we chose to use GWT rather than rolling our own native JavaScript framework this time around:
Of course, the other huge benefit of open systems (and especially open source projects) is learning from the collective wisdom of everyone who uses the technology. And so we're looking forward to incorporating the ongoing developments of GWT within the Mashup Editor.
Interested in playing around with the Google Mashup Editor? Head over to its homepage to sign up for the limited beta, and then check out our mashup gallery and developer forum for sample mashups built by the community.
