myOrganicShadow said
Apress really lets us down with this one! This feels more like a pamphlet than a book. I found almost nothing new in here.
1) It is only 140 pages.
2) Large useless pictures fill up many pages.
3) Large top and bottom margins waste tons of space.
4) Large font, font spacing, and header sections break up everything.
5) The examples are less helpful than what is available on the EXT GWT website.
6) The book only covers really obvious stuff. Things most commonly discussed in an intro.
7) The book has no index!
To quote directly from the last page of the book
"GXT has many other aspects that just couldn't be explored within the pages of this book."
If you are a developer you most likely can do without this. I have been developing GWT and GXT for about two months before reading this. So if this book will be your first GXT experience maybe it will help you.
Developpez.com writers said
This book is intended for Java developers who want to quickly develop a rich web application using GWT-Ext library.
The particularity of this collection is to follow technological developments as closely as possible. This book is not an exception to the rule and uses GWT and GWT-Ext in their latest versions (GWT is 1.6 and GWT-Ext is 2.0). If you plan to buy, so this is the moment !
This book has a didactic style, it begins with an overview, how to install this library, introduces the simple and advanced components and ends with a concrete example.
The first chapter describes both GWT-Ext and GWT. Since the topic of this book is Ext-GWT, author begins with it. We can see that this library is a layer of GWT because the author has much more to say about general GWT. If this presentation of GWT does not replace a book dedicated, it remains a good summary.
The second chapter is a useful tutorial that explains how to configure a development environment GWT-Ext in Eclipse and how to start a first application. The author seems to prefer the didactic GWT batches to the simplicity of the GWT Eclipse-plugin.
The third and fourth chapters gradually introduces the components of the library, from the simplest to the more advanced one. The presentation is progressive and easy reading. Some screenshots and code examples complement the explanations.
The fifth chapter describes the GWT-Ext components which link the graphical widgets to the server components. As the library does, the author decided to follow a "full GWT" way and therefore does only cover the GWT RPC mode. Do not try to find in this book an example of data exchange with XML or JSON, you won't find any !
The sixth and final section provides a concrete example which aims to sumamarize all the things presented in previous chapters. Although synthetic, it also provides some additional information needed to build a real application.
Before reading this book, I had built GWT-Ext applications, using all the Ext components. The benefit to you is that I could write a better review with respect to what is said or not by the author! The downside for me is that suddenly, I'm left wanting more ... Must believe that I am not the target !
What is great in this book is all the comments, tips and tricks it contains. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it gives all the traps in which I fall myself. I therefore recommend mainly to those who want to write their first application with GWT-Ext.
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