If you as a Vaadin developer have some background in desktop application development, you are probably well aware of the similarities that Vaadin and desktop GUI libraries like Swing have. The development model is so similar that Swing developers typically feel right at home on the very first day they start with Vaadin.
Although APIs are not identical and there are different approaches to doing some things, the component based programming paradigm at the heart of both libraries makes the transition between these libraries really easy. And you can most often forget everything you’ve heard about complex web technologies such as DOMs, HTML, XHR, WebSockets and JavaScript - the low level stuff that Vaadin tackles for you.
Similar UI code created with Swing (left) and Vaadin.
We recently noticed that we haven’t really emphasized this fact enough in our developer advocacy. We had a small project preparing material for new Vaadin developers or Vaadin evaluators, with background on Swing application development.
First of all, we prepared a special page to explain how and why migrating from Swing to web applications is becoming increasingly critical. To support it, we also made a separate wiki-page about the topic and an example project that has both a Swing client application and a modern Vaadin web application, that both connect to the same database via the same EJB based business logic layer.
Although the material is written primarily for Swing developers, it most likely helps you if you are coming to Vaadin from any other desktop GUI library, such as SWT, AWT or even non-Java frameworks like QT. Even if you were already using Vaadin, you could check out the material and edit the wiki page or tell us what you think. And if you have desktop developer friends or colleagues about to enter the web development world, now you know where to steer them!