Over the last few days, I have been asked several times - "Why EGL?". It's a good question. For those of us that have been around EGL, the answer is obvious: spend more time innovating and less time fighting with technology. For those of you that are not familiar with EGL and the new EGL Community Edition tool, here are some of the key benefits. These benefits should resonate if you've ever fought with JavaScript 
- EGL does not replace HTML, JavaScript, or Java, but makes development of HTML, JavaScript, and Java easier. EGL code is compiled (on the fly) based on where it needs to run. EGL code that is expected to run in the browser is compiled into JavaScript and HTML. EGL code that is expected to run on an application server (like Apache Tomcat) is compiled into Java.
- Build a complete application in one language (EGL). So, instead of coding server-side logic in one language (like Java or PHP) and client-side logic in another (HTML and JavaScript), with EGL CE, you can code the entire application in EGL. This allows you to learn just one language and not several. Another major benefit of this approach is that data is represented the same way in both server-side and client-side EGL code. So, for example, you can define a Record (a record is an EGL concept similar to a Java bean for representing some data object) once and reference in both your server-side code and client-side code. The record is automatically compiled into Java and JavaScript as needed. EGL handles the serialization and parsing of the actual data being transported (between the server and browser) so you don't have to worry about it.
- Completely code, test, and debug without deploying anything to an application server. The Preview tab of the EGL editor provides a running version of your application. When you switch to this tab in the editor, your EGL code is compiled on-the-fly. You can also set breakpoints in your code for easier debugging (EGL CE uses the standard Eclipse Debug tools and perspective). Best of all, you don't have to deploy services to a server to debug them.
- Transparent client/server development. With EGL CE, all code - both code that will eventually run as JavaScript in a browser and Java on the server - is developed in the same Eclipse project (of course, you can always develop in separate projects if needed). From within your UI code, you can directly reference and call services. Under the covers, EGL will create a REST service for your services and take care of the bindings necessary at runtime.
- Integrating with existing services. EGL supports calling existing SOAP and REST (JSON or XML) services. So, if you already have Web services up and running, you can use EGL to build a new UI. Within your EGL code, input and output to the service is represented as EGL variables or records. In the case of SOAP services, EGL will automatically create the input and output records for you - all you need to do it import the WSDL file.
- Data access. EGL makes interacting with databases simple. EGL provides simple keywords (get, add, delete, etc) to easily work with a database.
- Easy deployment. With EGL, you can fully develop and test your application before ever deploying it to a server. Once you are ready to deploy, however, EGL CE deploys code into a standard Eclipse Dynamic Web project. This project can be run on Apache Tomcat or packaged as a .WAR file and deployed to an external application server.
