Russell D. Holloway said
This is an excellent book for learning GWT, but it does assume some background knowledge in other topics, so it is not the simplest book.
I personally found that this book mentions and uses many design patterns, but if you have never studied design patterns (as a fair amount of computer scientists have not), then this book could be pretty difficult to follow.
However, if you do understand design patterns, then you will know what the author is talking about and realize that all of the sample programs and apps that are designed are truly designed well. The author shows how to use and combine great coding techniques and patterns to develop a strong application that is flexible and extensible.
Because of some of these assumptions, the textbook can be confusing, but if you do have the knowledge that is assumed, then this is an EXCELLENT textbook.
(For design patterns, I recommend the book Head First Design Patterns - it is an excellent book that covers the major design patterns and is quite enjoyable to read. You will learn all the patterns needed in that book to be able to follow GWT In Practice).
If you are looking to just make some simple apps in GWT but are not aiming for flexible, commercial level software, then you might want to look elsewhere for other textbooks. GWT In Action is much easier to follow, although it is a little dated now. However, it covers the basics of GWT which (at the time of this review) have not changed.
Max R. Tomlinson said
This book is a good intro to GWT but there are free resources which do the same. Google's support is a better reference (and up to date). I find myself going there more often than this book.
J. Culverwell said
GWT in practice covers the Google Web Toolkit at a level few books on this subject matter go into. The book is well written and also approachable for someone who is new to GWT. I particularly found useful the chapter on deployment which also covers deployment using Maven with the GWT-Maven plug-in, and the chapter on CI which covered Hudson. IMHO it is worth buying the book for these chapters alone as this information is hard to find anywhere else.
Gregg Yedvarb said
As a beginner to GWT, I was interested in a book that provided examples and also explained components. This books does exactly both. The examples vary from very simple to complex. They really made it easy for me to understand how to actually us this in practice, no pun intended. I definitely agree with other reviewers that a background in Java will definitely be necessary to easily follow. Overall, this is one of the better technology books I have read.
Michael Shaffer said
For starters: I am one of the pilot developers in my company (a large Fortune 100 Financial Institution) doing GWT development. We are about to release our first product to the business. So I've spent the last 18 months or so learning and beating my way through GWT. In the process, I've bought all the GWT books that are out there. Straight to the point: this is the best one out there. Period. Cooper & Collins have produced an excellent book on User Interface development for the next generation....and you get an outstanding understanding of basic and advanced principles in GWT. Plenty of good stuff for the beginner as well as someone who claims to be fairly advanced. GWT in Action by Rob Hanson used to be my favorite...it still has a soft spot for being the first real GWT book, and a great reference book. Collins & Cooper have managed have the same energy that David Geary has in GWT Solutions (which is lofty praise if you've ever seen David speak about GWT!). I really like Dewsbury's GWT Applications, but GWT in Practice is actually better. There are 3 other GWT books (can't remember their names because they're at home), the 2 black and yellow ones and the flower book...I really like GWT in Action better. I've used gwittir, which is a binding framework from Cooper & Collins, so when I saw that they had written a book, I was psyched. In this day and age when book sales gotta be tough because of all the info on the internet, I was glad to see a book that I didn't think was just a rehashing of what's out there online. Good stuff guys...crank out a new version when GWT 1.5 is fully baked and I'll buy it!
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