Boost Extensibility and Simplify Maintainability of Web Applications: Proposals for Google Web Toolkit Plug-in Architectures
Ingo Jaeckel
I wrote a short article proposes a plug-in management architecture for
GWT/AppEngine applications, see
http://honeycrm.googlecode.com/files/BoostExtensibilityAndSimplifyMaintainabilityOfWebApplicationsProposalsForGoogleWebToolkitPlugInArchitectures.pdf.
Now, I would like to invite the community to discuss my proposal.
Thanks in advance to everyone for reading and discussing the proposal.
Abstract: The extensibility of Google Web Toolkit (GWT) applications
running on the Google App Engine platform is currently limited due to
the absence of a plug-in infrastructure. Even though for desktop,
server, and web applications, plug-ins have been existing for decades,
they are not prevalent in GWT today. In this article, I outline the
development environment restrictions that make it a challenge to
provide dynamic plug-in loading support. I assume that the
introduction of a plug-in architecture would dramatically enhance the
extensibility and the maintainability of GWT applications. Therefore,
this article proposes approaches for statically and dynamically loaded
plug-ins for GWT applications.
Kind regards
Ingo
Ingo Jaeckel
after discussing the topic with a college, I realized I have to
explain the context of my proposal.
There is no application independent mechanism in GWT to dynamically
load extensions. Consequently, GWT applications either do not support
it or implement plug-in loading on their own. I am convinced this has
to be changed, mainly because of two obervations: The dramatically
increasing popularity of both (1) AppStores, e.g. Apple App Store,
Android Market, and (2) browser/web applications. To support AppStore
concepts in web applications, the GWT/AppEngine community would profit
from having an application independent framework for the management of
application extensions, i.e. plug-ins, apps, or add-ons.
Kind regards
Ingo
2011/1/17 Ingo Jaeckel <ingo.j...@googlemail.com>: