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Back in the late 90s-early 2000s, Microsoft baked Internet Explorer into the Windows shell. It was badically powering the desktop. Ypu could even set ypur deskt

Back in the late 90s-early 2000s, Microsoft baked Internet Explorer into the Windows shell. It was badically powering the desktop. Ypu could even set ypur desktop background to an HTML page on Windows at one time. But basically, the browser has been given an enormous amount of responsibility that has not changed much since those experiments. We now have things like Chromebooks that are little more than an OS with just a browser attached.

kbenson 6y ago
> We now have things like Chromebooks that are little more than an OS with just a browser attached. Which makes sense because a browser is basically a set of abstractions over some normal OS functions that blends remote and local actions (even if only a subset of them). Java wanted to be a universal VM, but browsers actually achieved this through HTML and JavaScript. They're going even farther with WASM.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  If by "even farther" you mean "circling back around" to being Java.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > Java wanted to be a universal VM, but browsers actually achieved this through HTML and JavaScript. Java succeeded, you know. Still happily powers embedded systems, servers, and desktop applications. Still runs the same binaries on NT/Darwin/Linux/Haiku/whatever. Don't dismiss it just because it's not the latest hotness.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    I'm not dismissing it... but it's being eaten. The Web is the ultimate platform. Every goal Java and the JVM had (that they didn't mostly drop, like native bytecode CPUs) has either been achieved, surpassed, or quickly will be by browsers, Javascript and WASM. The only holdouts I see are stuff where Java is part of the standard (e.g. SIM cards using Java Card standard) or embedded systems where they use Java of some sort where it doesn't make sense to use the enormous browser runtimes (although I have to imagine that's a less popular option than C, but I'm not super informed on the embedded market). I mean, I'm not particularly a fan of where this is heading (it feels like we're heading for the second coming of Java applets/flash and all those associated problem), but it seems pretty obvious, to me at least.

kbenson 6y ago

> We now have things like Chromebooks that are little more than an OS with just a browser attached. Which makes sense because a browser is basically a set of abstractions over some normal OS functions that blends remote and local actions (even if only a subset of them). Java wanted to be a universal VM, but browsers actually achieved this through HTML and JavaScript. They're going even farther with WASM.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
If by "even farther" you mean "circling back around" to being Java.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> Java wanted to be a universal VM, but browsers actually achieved this through HTML and JavaScript. Java succeeded, you know. Still happily powers embedded systems, servers, and desktop applications. Still runs the same binaries on NT/Darwin/Linux/Haiku/whatever. Don't dismiss it just because it's not the latest hotness.
- kbenson 6y ago
  I'm not dismissing it... but it's being eaten. The Web is the ultimate platform. Every goal Java and the JVM had (that they didn't mostly drop, like native bytecode CPUs) has either been achieved, surpassed, or quickly will be by browsers, Javascript and WASM. The only holdouts I see are stuff where Java is part of the standard (e.g. SIM cards using Java Card standard) or embedded systems where they use Java of some sort where it doesn't make sense to use the enormous browser runtimes (although I have to imagine that's a less popular option than C, but I'm not super informed on the embedded market). I mean, I'm not particularly a fan of where this is heading (it feels like we're heading for the second coming of Java applets/flash and all those associated problem), but it seems pretty obvious, to me at least.