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The Java plugin, like Flash, was a security nightmare and poorly integrated with the rest of the stack. Not having a bundled set of widgets is probably an adva

The Java plugin, like Flash, was a security nightmare and poorly integrated with the rest of the stack. Not having a bundled set of widgets is probably an advantage, flexibility wise. People like to bash (ha!) JavaScript, but I think it’s begginer friendliness is often overlooked. Just look at how easy it is to get something done compared to Java in the browser. That and load time probably contributed to its success more than anything else.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
> The Java plugin, like Flash, was a security nightmare Neither is inherently less secure than javascript running in a web browser. > and poorly integrated with the rest of the stack. Yeah, but, so? Maybe I'm too old and curmudgeonly but I preferred it when applications acted like applications and websites acted like websites. Now I have to deal with websites that are half application, without the responsiveness of either and built on a pile of franken-code.
- lysium 8y ago
  > Neither is inherently less secure than javascript running in a web browser Why do you think that? I’ve heard a lot of vulnerabilities in Java and Flash plugins but JavaScript not so much.
  - jerven 8y ago
    Because they where vulnerabilities in the JS engine of all browsers and they have similar issues. See the browser release notes for the last ten years. e.g. https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2016/03/stable-channel-update_24.html https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2016/03/stable-channel... Thing is the browser engines where are not so diligent about CVE's and they are necessary evil, while Java/Flash where optional evil. With the Flash plugin being significantly worse quality than the Java ones.
  - reacweb 8y ago
    java plugin was a reputable good security sandbox. Features were added and some subtile security problems were found. Oracle repeatedly failed at fixing these problems because it wanted to avoid breaking old applications. The consequences of this bad management is that the reputation of java plugins is bad and they are prohibited in many enterprises. The problem is only a management problem, there were not technical reasons. The idea of having java application in a safe sandbox is perfectly viable except oracle.
    - JazzXP 8y ago
      Oracle ended up breaking Applets many times anyway. As someone who worked on a very complex applet during this period, the amount of times they changed security settings was crazy. Even some of those changes that had to be made in the manifests, broke security in the previous jvm version.
  - senorjazz 8y ago
    perhaps that every single web page malware has been served by javascript?
- senorjazz 8y ago
  You know when it is a website, when it takes multiple seconds to load a page of text, that then appears empty because some random JS script from one of the 20+ different domains was blocked from loading ;-)
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    That, and the way what I'm reading keeps jumping around as images load in and f' up the layout. Truly this is the progress we all hoped to see in computing in 2018.
freeone3000 8y ago
Who said anything about a plugin? JNLP, or jdeploy, or shipping a jar.
PaulHoule 8y ago
Sun made a big mistake shipping Java 1.0 without serialization. Back then I was writing applets for science education that would do things like send a mesh to a finite element solver and get the mesh back with stress information. Back then 2/3 of the code and most of the loading time came from hand-written code to serialize and deserialize data structures. Eg. an applet could have been small and fast loading if serialization was built into the platform. Java 1.1 added serialization, but it took a long time to get into browsers, Netscape added their own lame serialization scheme, etc... By then the rot was already setting in.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  Although small applets can make sense some times I can hardly see a reason (but a habit) why would anybody want an application to run inside a browser window.
qwerty456127 8y ago
> it’s begginer friendliness Isn't JavaScript code written by beginners almost as bug-prone as C/C++ code is? I wouldn't rely on code written by a beginner unless it is written in a strongly-typed mostly immutable functional language.
- senorjazz 8y ago
  I would also disagree that is beginner friendly to write a webapp in javascript. Unless the op, just meant getting "hello world" on the screen from an HTML file, but that is a meaningless metric imo. Writing a web app in JS is hard, getting the workflow all sorted, and then writing bugfree code. IS more a herculean task than "beginner friendly"
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    I meant a step above from hello world. Doing something simple is simple. The node, webpack, react stuff is very complicated indeed

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

> The Java plugin, like Flash, was a security nightmare Neither is inherently less secure than javascript running in a web browser. > and poorly integrated with the rest of the stack. Yeah, but, so? Maybe I'm too old and curmudgeonly but I preferred it when applications acted like applications and websites acted like websites. Now I have to deal with websites that are half application, without the responsiveness of either and built on a pile of franken-code.

lysium 8y ago
> Neither is inherently less secure than javascript running in a web browser Why do you think that? I’ve heard a lot of vulnerabilities in Java and Flash plugins but JavaScript not so much.
- jerven 8y ago
  Because they where vulnerabilities in the JS engine of all browsers and they have similar issues. See the browser release notes for the last ten years. e.g. https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2016/03/stable-channel-update_24.html https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2016/03/stable-channel... Thing is the browser engines where are not so diligent about CVE's and they are necessary evil, while Java/Flash where optional evil. With the Flash plugin being significantly worse quality than the Java ones.
- reacweb 8y ago
  java plugin was a reputable good security sandbox. Features were added and some subtile security problems were found. Oracle repeatedly failed at fixing these problems because it wanted to avoid breaking old applications. The consequences of this bad management is that the reputation of java plugins is bad and they are prohibited in many enterprises. The problem is only a management problem, there were not technical reasons. The idea of having java application in a safe sandbox is perfectly viable except oracle.
  - JazzXP 8y ago
    Oracle ended up breaking Applets many times anyway. As someone who worked on a very complex applet during this period, the amount of times they changed security settings was crazy. Even some of those changes that had to be made in the manifests, broke security in the previous jvm version.
- senorjazz 8y ago
  perhaps that every single web page malware has been served by javascript?
senorjazz 8y ago
You know when it is a website, when it takes multiple seconds to load a page of text, that then appears empty because some random JS script from one of the 20+ different domains was blocked from loading ;-)
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  That, and the way what I'm reading keeps jumping around as images load in and f' up the layout. Truly this is the progress we all hoped to see in computing in 2018.

freeone3000 8y ago

Who said anything about a plugin? JNLP, or jdeploy, or shipping a jar.

PaulHoule 8y ago

Sun made a big mistake shipping Java 1.0 without serialization. Back then I was writing applets for science education that would do things like send a mesh to a finite element solver and get the mesh back with stress information. Back then 2/3 of the code and most of the loading time came from hand-written code to serialize and deserialize data structures. Eg. an applet could have been small and fast loading if serialization was built into the platform. Java 1.1 added serialization, but it took a long time to get into browsers, Netscape added their own lame serialization scheme, etc... By then the rot was already setting in.

qwerty456127 8y ago
Although small applets can make sense some times I can hardly see a reason (but a habit) why would anybody want an application to run inside a browser window.

qwerty456127 8y ago

> it’s begginer friendliness Isn't JavaScript code written by beginners almost as bug-prone as C/C++ code is? I wouldn't rely on code written by a beginner unless it is written in a strongly-typed mostly immutable functional language.

senorjazz 8y ago
I would also disagree that is beginner friendly to write a webapp in javascript. Unless the op, just meant getting "hello world" on the screen from an HTML file, but that is a meaningless metric imo. Writing a web app in JS is hard, getting the workflow all sorted, and then writing bugfree code. IS more a herculean task than "beginner friendly"
- tambourine_man 8y ago
  I meant a step above from hello world. Doing something simple is simple. The node, webpack, react stuff is very complicated indeed