Third party tools

Do the third party AJAX development tools offer much savings in regard to time & effort or is it just as easy to develop from scratch. If the tools are valuable, is there any one that stands head & shoulders above the rest?

I'm not sure what type of tools you mean.
For me, the Firebug plugin to FireFox has been a big time saver.

Google Window toolkit.

Google for GWT.

Originally posted by Rahul Bhattacharjee:
Google Window toolkit.

Google for GWT.

I don't think Jim was asking for the names of tools that are out there.
He asked if they save time.

Do you use GWT?
Has it saved time for you?
Can you tell us about it?

Originally posted by Rahul Bhattacharjee:
Google Window toolkit.

The good folks at Google are going to come after you for that one. :-)

Do you use GWT?

No.

Though I have not used it , but whatever I know about it from that I can say that developing a AJAX based web application would definitely be much easier using GWT.

Think about it.One is a java programmer and familiar with java.He can make the whole application using Java and then GWT would generate the required HTML and JS for this application.Simply host those to see the results.

On the other hand , if we try developing the same AJAX application using js library like prototype.js then we can make out the benefits of GWT.

Ulf : The good folks at Google are going to come after you for that one. :-)

Sorry , its google web toolkit.

The whole intension was to let the original poster know about this option for evaluation.

Originally posted by Rahul Bhattacharjee:

Though I have not used it , but whatever I know about it from that I can say that developing a AJAX based web application would definitely be much easier using GWT.

I've used it. I disagree. It's different, but hardly easier. And with much much less control over what you get.

[Rahul]:The whole intension was to let the original poster know about this option for evaluation.

Its good idea.At least the original asker would come to know about this and can evaluate this for his purpose.

Though I have not used it , but whatever I know about it from that I can say that developing a AJAX based web application would definitely be much easier using GWT.

I agree with Bear. To be very concrete, using GWT, it's impossible to have an HTML integrator who translates a Photoshop design into some static HTML prototype to be later dynamicized by server-side developers. I've worked on quite a few projects where it would have been 99% impossible to use GWT because of this very reason.
[ July 25, 2007: Message edited by: Valentin Crettaz ]