Some interesting references for this discussion:
Vaadin client side interaction without trip to server: https://vaadin.com/directory#addon/snappy
Vaadin server push http://vaadin.com/directory#addon/dontpush-ozonelayer https://vaadin.com/directory#addon/dontpush
Integrating Vaadin with jQuery and others: https://vaadin.com/wiki/-/wiki/Main/Integration%20Experiences?p_r_p_185834411_title=Integration%2520Experiences
Embedding Vaadin in Webpage: https://vaadin.com/book/-/page/application.embedding.html
Vaadin 7.0
http://dev.vaadin.com/wiki/Vaadin7
- Major refactoring with API changes.
- Things deprecated since version 6 goes out.
- Component hierarchies are changing, more interfaces, enums instead of constants, containers have changes to API.
- Will not support IE6 and IE7.
- Adds server-side style names as-is without the component prefix to improve CSS parsing performance.
- Window management is refactored, uri fragment handling changes. The app no longer loads then switches to the view indicated in the uri.
- New navigation api for mapping uris to views.
- Widgets are redesigned on client side to allow for better composition. No longer tightly couples presentation and server communication in the same class. Will happen gradually in 7.0.1, 7.0.2 etc.