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The GWT ClientFactory seems to be a budding new design pattern for GWT apps, and although is not officially a part of the GWT API, is encouraged by GWT and is found in countless GWT/MVP examples.

I want to like the ClientFactory concept. But here's my concern: for really large apps, that have many screens, display regions and complex architectures, a single ClientFactory is going to become this massive monolith of a datastructure, with potentially hundreds of getter methods on it.

So I ask: is this ok? Why is such a monolith design encouraged and acceptable for GWT but not in other (general) applications. More importantly, is there a way to decompose the broad-spanning ClientFactory into a hierarchy of factory objects, to help with code maintainability, dependencies/references, etc?

If so, does one decompose a ClientFactory into smaller factories, each responsible for injecting a different part of the app with the necessary views, presenters, etc?

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    You might want to check out Gin (Guice for GWT): http://code.google.com/p/google-gin/ It can really help doing dependency injection in large GWT apps. – ben_w Oct 29 '12 at 18:07

2 Answers2

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The ClientFactory idea is just manual DI, to make for easy, comprehensible wiring. Without knowing anything about GIN, or even GWT, these applications appear to be mostly Java, letting you get the picture of how to make pieces work, without needing to learn the specifics of the author's preferred way to wire together an application.

Just like a sample Java tutorial would have you start with public static void main(String[] args), or might have you build a completely manual Servlet, you can use this to get the idea, then move on to a better structured application. ClientFactory's utility is from its simplicity and transparency as a concept, not because it is the One True Way to build a large application.

Thomas Broyer
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Colin Alworth
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As ben_w suggests:

Use Google Gin and create your App by creating some GinModules. Than you cn use @Inject at clientside. This will help to handle the Complexity. In fact I wouldn't start any project without Dependency Injection.

Christian Kuetbach
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