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Not really an apples to apples comparison. With JS and the browser, you are distributing the runtime libraries separately from the application. Imagine having

Not really an apples to apples comparison. With JS and the browser, you are distributing the runtime libraries separately from the application. Imagine having to write a GUI app in Java that would work with every JRE version. The other thing is that Sun owned the standard. So even if you were IBM and were making your own runtime environment, you couldn't call it Java unless Sun agreed. Imagine if you had multiple vendors supplying a JRE and several of them were intentionally breaking their versions to lock users into their implementation. Lately the browser vendors have started to work a little bit better with each other, but I doubt it will ever be like Java.

egeozcan 10y ago
Yes, you are right. I wasn't complaining though, as I understand the reason behind the current state of things. It was more of a wish, to be clear. However, in the end, we are still getting something close to Java with Web Assembly (Stable byte-code-like platform and potentially many languages targeting it).
pvg 10y ago
Imagine having to write a GUI app in Java that would work with every JRE version. You don't have to imagine. Just tried it: http://i.imgur.com/zBNkKTu.png http://i.imgur.com/zBNkKTu.png Netscape IFC, 1996-1997 vintage. Compiles and runs like a champ on JDK 8, current OS X. Just like it did on JDK 1.