> Java applets were never that big. They didn't work very well (for the reason you mention) and weren't ubiquitous. They also nearly all looked like shit. Not

> Java applets were never that big. They didn't work very well (for the reason you mention) and weren't ubiquitous. They also nearly all looked like shit. Not sure if it's the same thing, but... when i was 16 or 17 i did tech support for an uncle who used to do trading with a trading client application written in java and some other tech stuff. The java thing was launched via a desktop launched and the splash screen i later found out being java web start (.jnlp extension iirc?). I didn't see the value at that time, but now that i think of it, java web start was a nice solution to manage "apps" installed and also fetch updates, automatically. IIRC there was a setting to always download the latest version, if possible. Needless to say, this was ahead of its time. As I move forward in my career i always find some new interesting thing about the java virtual machine, it truly is a marvel of technology. The latest things that got me amazed were the flight recorder and mission control toolbox (very cool to be able to see in realtime what your application is doing and why it's performing the way it is) and the new garbage collectors (we're currently using G1, but i want to propose testing Shenandoah or ZGC).