Yes i know one alternative to solving this problem is simply to create two source directories from the original. The class path for the GWT compiler would thus be setup to simply only see the compatible source while both would be used for the server portion of your app.
Firstly i find this kind of ugly, because it means i now have two source directories with potential doubles of classes.
Is there a better way ?
You can exclude classes (files actually) from GWT's source path using Ant-like includes/excludes: http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/doc/latest/DevGuideOrganizingProjects.html#DevGuidePathFiltering You cannot exclude methods or inner classes though, it really is file-based. See http://code.google.com/p/google-web-toolkit/issues/detail?id=3769