I want to disagree, but I think you are right. Java and Flash were the only alternatives to javascript that ever gained a foothold, and both of them were secon

I want to disagree, but I think you are right. Java and Flash were the only alternatives to javascript that ever gained a foothold, and both of them were second class citizens. Circa 2001 I tried to use Java to interact with the DOM and ran into a browser bug that iirc took about a decade to fix. If the technology had ever been usable things might have turned out differently (or it might have turned out the same, who knows).