[akronim]

GWT is awesome if you have a team of Java developers who aren't really web developers. You can be productive without having all the HTTP/css/javascript/html skills you would need otherwise (though you still want someone on your team who can look at the details underneath the abstraction).

But if you want something as fast and as scalable as possible, of course you can do better by working at a lower level.

[rpeden]

The other side of that is that in the hands of someone with good knowledge of HTML and CSS, you can accomplish quite a bit with GWT.

Prior to starting a project with GWT, I had only done client-side development in vanilla Javascript, HTML, and CSS. I was pretty skeptical about the prospect of writing in Java and having it compiled to Javascript being a viable way to create a web app.

Fast forward almost a year, and I've built a complex user-facing app for my company using custom CSS styled components and HTML5. I was worried about GWT being a leaky abstraction, but thus far it has, for the most part, just worked.

The biggest win for me isn't even the Java to JavaScript compiled. UiBinder has ended up being a great way to design custom widgets using html and css, and having them be easily reusable throughout the app.

So, while GWT can be used by Java devs to avoid having to learn much about HTML and CSS, using it this way results in missing out on a ton of its potential. In the hands of the right developers, it can be quite a good tool for creating great looking, complex client-side apps.

I realize some people hate Java with a passion, but I've found that the non-enterprisy style of Java I use when writing GWT apps isn't painful at all.