I am about to start developing a private TODO website (that later will be extended to Web applications). I am unsure what framework to use. I have read about GWT and PHP frameworks such as Yii. What advantages do each one have over another.
Background
– experience in Java
– got an apache web host that supports php
Doubts:
- Would developing in GWT mean that refactoring would be easier than developing in PHP (especially since you can use Eclipse)
- seems like PHP frameworks such as Yii design objects for you once you create database layout … can this be done with GWT?
Thanks!
One big difference I haven’t seen mentioned in the question or answers/comments is that Yii is a server-side framework, which runs entirely on your own/hosted server, whereas GWT compiles to JavaScript, and is therefore runs in the client’s browser only. These two offerings (and ideas) serve very different purposes, and can be used together.
When using GWT to build the client, the server can be built using any tool desired, so long as it exposes data to the JS-based client. That can be in the form of JSON or XML, or some other data encoding (GWT’s built in RPC, for example, can pass complex object graphs to and from a Java servlet container).
If you were to use them together, Yii could be used to create PHP objects from the database schema/layout, and to build the various rules for authentication/authorization so the client can read and write data. GWT could then be used to build a client which reads and updates that data, making calls to services exposed by Yii/PHP code.