[code-scope]

Agree, Remind me of GWT (google web toolkit) - Marketing message sounds very good: Let your Java Developer write java, GWT compile it into Javascript and run it on the webpage.

In reality, it only works for "hello world" with 2 buttons. Anything non-trivial requires developers who are experts in Java, Javascript and GWT compiler/translator which translate JAVA to javascript. Debugging machine generated code was hell.

[acemarke]

Eh, I built one GWT app by myself in 2011-12, maybe 40K lines of GWT code. First web app I'd ever worked on - all my existing experience was desktop (C#, C++, Java, Python). It worked as advertised, and let me build something useful. Another team has a GWT app that we are just now finally working on migrating. Anecdotally, I've seen user group discussions of very large enterprise GWT apps. So, the technology does actually work as advertised.

Having said that, GWT stagnated while the modern JS ecosystem evolved. GWT's debugger plugin died, and JS build and debug tooling kept getting better. React is a fundamentally superior approach to building UIs. And, while I'm biased, the React+Redux+TS combo is a solid toolset for building apps, and the ability to actually develop and debug code is way better than what GWT ever provided.