Google Tech Talk about the XML11 Project (Runs Java Code without a local JVM)

[EvilAndrew]

I just finished watching this Google Tech. Talk and I found it very interesting.  The talk is called â€Ã...“XML11: An Abstract Windowing Protocolâ€Ã, and it is about an open source product that acts like a modern version of the old X11 windowing protocol.  This product allows standard AWT (the old Java Abstract Windowing Toolkit) applications to run in a web browser using only javascript (no local JVM is required) and a server-side component. The talk also includes a brief introduction to the difference between AJAX and traditional server-side dynamic web pages.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3171582187051229467&q=google+tech+talks

One thing I found particularly interesting was the comparison to Google’s Web Toolkit.  I have used the GWT and I can see why Google took the approach that they did* (even though the speaker seems to have missed it), but for small projects and webpages XML11 would be much easier to develop for than the GWT.  This is particularly the case now, when there is no easy JavaScript debugger and more people know AWT than Google’s custom API.


* I’m sure Google has a lot of high-powered servers.  But even so, the server-side overhead for this product compared to GWT would make it prohibitive for use in in-house Google projects.