Like most Java developers I used to have a serious aversion to JavaScript. I was quite happy to delegate any 'scripting' stuff to fellow developers. At my current project, we initially decided to use the Vaadin web framework. It seemed the perfect choice for creating Rich Internet Application (RIA) user-interfaces without writing a single line of JavaScript. However what originally seemed to be a sensible choice, turned out to be a dead-end:

• Vaadin is highly dependent on http sessions and as it turns out doesn't play well when being clustered.
• No default support for server push; also the 'most stable' Vaadin add-on turned out to be quite unstable and incompatible with clustering.
• No wrapper existed for v3 of Google Maps; as an alternative we used the OpenLayers Add-on instead. However this add-on turned out to be not so stable either and lacked the user experience of Google Maps to which users are accustomed to (like dragging the 'pegman' on the map in order to show street view).

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