Wow - google web toolkit

This is something new:
"Google Web Toolkit - Build AJAX apps in the Java language"

You write (and debug) the web app, in Java, and this thing "compiles" your code into JavaScript and HTML. It's probably more accurate to call it a JavaScript/HTML code generator. Plus a framework of sorts for dealing the with traffic.
turns things upside down. I have been playing with Dojo and using Prototype and Scriptaculous, but this is more like RJS, the new JS generator in Rails 1.1.

This would have really appealed to the me of three years ago that had no interest whatever in learning JavaScript. I was perfectly happy doing Java...now I am getting back into the dynamic/scripting thing that I had abandoned for Java, and I don't need this as much, but it is still a useful idea.

Downsides, needs a lot of pretty. Upside- the back button handling and most of the API is well done. I may have to look into how it might be used on a java web project I work on occaisonally...