WT

AWT vs. Swing

AWT vs. Swing
For this assignment, it has been requested the author write a review of the advantages and disadvantages of AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit) vs. Swing in writing a Java program. AWT is a portable GUI library for standalone applications or applets with an advantage of speed in it’s use of native peers and performance. Additionally most web browsers support AWT so the applets designed will have greater ease in use and design and AWT components look similar to the operating system in which they run on. Swing uses a set of GUI components built upon AWT technology and gives it something of a “plug and play” feel and is implemented entirely in the Java programming language. Having pure Java design, it has a greater range of behavior and not limited by the native peers that AWT uses. Additionally it has a wider range of features like icons and pop up tools. Another thought, and this is opinion, is that Sun puts more interest into swing and makes it a more robust program for it’s web based uses. The look and feel with it’s pluggable abilities lets a user design a single set of GUI applications that look similar to the native OS it is running on.
Some disadvantages of AWT are the third party development and it’s smaller set of components that are available and the components typically do not support icon and tool tips. With swing, the general overall performance is slower and buggier than AWT, as this author has learned firsthand in writing with both. It tends to be buggier though this may be an author’s opinion. Additionally, Swing may not always look proper in it’s native environment.