Since the first edition of this book, the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) has grown, transformed, and emerged from a promising toolkit for web applications into a toolkit that truly supports 1) developers and managers in delivering web applications that can push the boundaries of the possible and 2) the application of well-tread engineering principles (deliver better user experience while reducing your development/maintenance costs).

This second edition of GWT in Action builds on our view of the first edition. It’s fully updated to look at the latest version, 2.5, of GWT, covering all the new techniques and tools—we even take a sneak look at the experimental items (such as super dev mode and the Elemental library). Perhaps the largest change between editions is that each technique is demonstrated with individual examples, rather than the monolithic example from the first edition. We hope this allows more focused examination and offers a simpler Ctrl+C/V mechanism to get those techniques into your own applications.

We said back in 2005 that we had noticed the web was reinventing itself with terms such as Ajax and Web 2.0 being created to help define the new technologies and ideas. As time has gone by, snippets of those techniques are on most modern websites— few websites require a page refresh to the server when updating information nowadays. Some sites have even harnessed the techniques in more depth and become full web applications, for example, Google Docs.