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Java applets never had, and never were planned to, have access to the DOM. Without access to the DOM, they had to implement their own GUI from scratch. The Java

by rocqua 10y ago

Java applets never had, and never were planned to, have access to the DOM. Without access to the DOM, they had to implement their own GUI from scratch. The Java UI experience has always suffered from it's platform-agnostic look that never fits in (and is just ugly). Webasm still can't manipulate the DOM, so it's still not very useful as a replacement for JS, but it is planned. To really replace JS though, we'd need webasm to support garbage-collected languages for ease of use. Probably, some dynamically typed languages as well.

bzbarsky 10y ago
> Java applets never had, and never were planned to, have access to the DOM. Well... see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI#LiveConnect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI#LiveConnect Now it's true that it involved more hoops, especially for someone who just knew Java but not DOM bits, so implementing a GUI using Swing or whatever was a path of least resistance. But it wasn't the only path. > Webasm still can't manipulate the DOM Not directly, but via FFI to JS it can.... Pretty similar to LiveConnect in some ways.