Was the lack of server side templating in GWT one of the reasons why Google+ team did NOT choose GWT ?

[Karthik Reddy]

As few of you might already know, Google plus team did not choose GWT but rather a differnt library, called Closure. 

The following were two direct quotes from Joseph Smarr (tech lead of google plus -- plus.google.com):

(FYI: The full Q & A with the Google+  Tech Lead can be found at: http://anyasq.com/79-im-a-technical-lead-on-the-google+-team)

"we often render our Closure templates server-side so the page renders before any JavaScript is loaded, then the JavaScript finds the right DOM nodes and hooks up event handlers, etc. to make it responsive (as a result, if you're on a slow connection and you click on stuff really fast, you may notice a lag before it does anything, but luckily most people don't run into this in practice)."

"The cool thing about Closure templates is they can be compiled into both Java and JavaScript. So we use Java server-side to turn the templates into HTML, but we can also do the same in JavaScript client-side for dynamic rendering. For instance, if you type in a profile page URL directly, we'll render it server-side, but if you go to the stream say and navigate to someone's profile page, we do it with AJAX and render it client-side using the same exact template. "

Going from the tone of the above two quotes, it seems to me that the lack of server-side templating  system in GWT (GWT has client-side templating in the form of UiBinder but not server-side templating) , could have been one of the reasons for  not choosing GWT for  the Google+ project.

What do you guys think??

Was the lack of server side templating  in GWT one of the reasons why Google+ team did not choose GWT ??

PS: If you guys haven't tried Google+ yet, I would recommend you try it. Setting aside how good of a social network/social collaboration tool it is, I suggest you guys try it just to get a feel of its UI architecture. Every once in a while, an application comes along and raises the bar(eg., Gmail in 2004) in the area of UI design/UI development and I think Google plus has done it this time around.im

[Jim Douglas]

I'm not seeing anything in that Q&A to indicate that the G+ team
evaluated and rejected GWT, just that the engineers who built it
happened to use Closure Tools:

"why GWT technology has not used in Google+"

"Nothing against GWT, but the engineers who started building Google+
didn't use it, and in general projects end up all-GWT or no-GWT, and
this was the latter."

http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/11/introducing-closure-tools.html

http://code.google.com/closure/
http://code.google.com/closure/faq.html#gwt

http://derekslager.com/blog/posts/2010/06/google-closure-introduction.ashx

On Jul 18, 8:59 am, Karthik Reddy <karthik.ele...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As few of you might already know, Google plus team did not choose GWT but
> rather a differnt library, called Closure.
>
> The following were two direct quotes from Joseph Smarr (tech lead of google
> plus -- plus.google.com):
>
> (FYI: The full Q & A with the Google+  Tech Lead can be found at:http://anyasq.com/79-im-a-technical-lead-on-the-google+-team)
>

> *"we often render our Closure templates server-side so the page renders

> before any JavaScript is loaded, then the JavaScript finds the right DOM
> nodes and hooks up event handlers, etc. to make it responsive (as a result,
> if you're on a slow connection and you click on stuff really fast, you may
> notice a lag before it does anything, but luckily most people don't run into

> this in practice)."*
>
> *"The cool thing about Closure templates is they can be compiled into both

> Java and JavaScript. So we use Java server-side to turn the templates into
> HTML, but we can also do the same in JavaScript client-side for dynamic
> rendering. For instance, if you type in a profile page URL directly, we'll
> render it server-side, but if you go to the stream say and navigate to
> someone's profile page, we do it with AJAX and render it client-side using

> the same exact template. "*

>
> Going from the tone of the above two quotes, it seems to me that the lack of
> server-side templating  system in GWT (GWT has client-side templating in the

> form of UiBinder but not server-side templating) , could have been *one of
> the reasons* for  not choosing GWT for  the Google+ project.