I see Google Apps as an example of someone (well, Google) doing exactly what you suggest for bloglines. Ironically, one of the Google products not included in Apps.

The compilation time bugged me at first too until someone said I was compiling too often. Once I realized that, I rarely have to do a full GWT compile anymore. Most often, it’s done on our build server now.

We don’t use any widgets so the testing story is quite different than what you describe here. Also, we’re using Cucumber and Capybara to define features. Makes it easier to test up front stuff without having to use GWTTestCase. Will admit our coverage numbers aren’t where they should be but that’s my fault, not the framework’s.

Like many other quickly growing tech companies in the past (Apple, for example), they seem to be operating in a bubble – even tech support and customer reps have a very poor idea how their actions affect customers or whether their tools are properly matched to real-world projects (other than Google’s in-house work, for which of course they are probably perfect).

To me that’s the first foreshadowing of serious trouble for Google in the future.

1. This is true of any ajax-heavy app. Today if you want well-indexed webpages, you either need to serve a lot of static HTML or adhere to this standard:
http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/
Some frameworks (such as gwtplatform) makes it easy to support ajax crawling within your GWT app.

2. Google recommends using the Model-View-Presenter architecture to facilitate unit testing. Once you switch to that, you almost never have to use GWTUnitTest. Again, I recommend looking into gwtplatform for an MVP framework that saves you much of the boilerplate.

3. In your code coverage metric, do you take into account your javascript code? Because I find it much harder to get good unit testing in JS than in GWT, especially with an MVP architecture.

4. GWT’s UiBinder let’s you design most of your page following good old HTML constructs and CSS. On the other hand, the newer layout panels are a very simple way to design good cross-browser layouts for full-screen apps. I believe HorizontalPanel is no longer recommended, personally I never use it.

5. We run the GWT compilation on our continuous integration server. For daily development we run the app right into eclipse which doesn’t require a compilation and allows for very efficient debugging.

Bottom line, my life has gotten much better since I started using GWT.

then, yes, only global government could control and limit the carbon emissions of mankind.

However, I have yet to see all of the above assumptions to be true, especially the first, and the last two. The sun is too hot and too variable (e.i. solar flares, sun spots) to not affect the mean temperature of the earth in different ways, at different times, at different places. This is why weather is so variable on earth and Mars, which has much more severe weather and is farther from the sun.

As per government, the only way that I could see global government working, not just working well, is if that government has no political motivations. However, human ambition is too prevelant and human ingenuity is too great for any government to not be used for private gains, thus politics is inevitable.

Based on the above, I say that we should keep government down and encourage less emmisive and more efficient means of transportation and power generation. So far only hyrdo-dams and nuclear power plants solve the latter.

US government restricts nuclear power plant production, so I am betting that that government is acting against Americans, in this respect. So, yes, nation states, like the US, are allowing increased carbon emissions by not allowing power companies to invest in nuclear power plants, and only for the political reason of fear about the plants exploding.

Perhaps I should have said ‘IBM’ instead of Microsoft.

“Java? knock yourself out! And here’s some lovely windows-only extensions you might like, and a free IDE for C#.”

Besides, what about the libraries you use. What about BISON or YACC grammars? What about Eclipse or IntelliJ generating code for you? That’s not “originally” written in C. What about Makefiles that generate header files or About.. files or changelogs? What about WSDL?

I suspect one of two results:
1) Clever developers subvert Apple’s rules so effectively that Apple gives up on this stupid concept.
2) Developers switch to Android, because they can get more done with less hassle.

The second case would be a rehash, more or less, of the Apple/Microsoft confrontation of the late 80s