<pre>Author/s : Robert Hanson, Adam Tacy Publisher : Manning Category :Other Review by : Jeanne Boyarsky Rating : 6 horseshoes</pre> Usually, I really like the "in action" series, but "GWT in Action" disappointed me. The book focus on examples "in action" almost to the exclusion of having the reader understand the concepts. It wasn't until the end of the book that I really understood what was going on.
I did like the step by step instructions on how to get started. The examples were good if you needed to do what the example did. It was tough to extrapolate to other scenarios though. Some of the code examples were rather long and involved. The end of the book was also good. It went into detail on HTML form controls, JSON, testing, deployment and most importantly -- how GWT works. These would have been nice earlier in the book. Especially the HTML form section. The majority of AJAX at this time is related to forms. Since the cover says "easy AJAX with GWT", I expected more on form based AJAX examples.
I felt that the book was trying to reach too broad an audience. For beginners without an understanding of JavaScript/HTML/DOM, I think it is overwhelming. The book provides "what's new in GWT 1.4", but the book is overkill for someone already using GWT. Most of the time the book treats what happens under the hood of GWT as magic and other times it becomes important. This switching of focus is a bit confusing.
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