The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) embodies a new approach to building Web 2.0 Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) based on Javascript running in a browser. An Ajax approach.
The GWT development environment which can be hosted by Eclipse or Netbeans, allows the simultaneous development of the browser code as well as server-side code that can add functionality to the application beyond what javascript is capable of. In fact, the GWT development environment includes a local "Tomcat-lite" servlet container that takes the place of what would later be full Tomcat executing on a remote server. So the full round-trip functionality can be developed and tested locally.
Before RIAs, any serious change in a web page had to be done by sending a request to a server that would result in downloading and rendering the entire page afresh. In javascript-based RIAs, a server can quickly send small amounts of update information that the client javascript can use to make changes in the page on the screen. The entire page does not need to be downloaded and rendered anew.
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