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Actually, Runescape one of the most successful MMOs ever was a Java applet. Java is much more effective at complex object-oriented modeling and an MMO is a cano

Actually, Runescape one of the most successful MMOs ever was a Java applet. Java is much more effective at complex object-oriented modeling and an MMO is a canonical example of where OOP not only shines but is necessary. Before ES6, there were half a dozen styles of approximating classes in JavaScript, the main one being with closure-returning-functions. Even utilizing these clever tricks to make JavaScript a decent language, the runtime would not have been powerful enough to run a game like Runescape. For a very long time, JavaScript was primitive in even managing media. Flash allowed Youtube to bridge the gap of playing videos in the browser. JavaScript-based web apps to stream music didn't become prominent until the 2010s, a decade and half after JavaScript was invented. Yahoo music, the prominent web-based music player in the 2000s, used a Flash plugin. So Indeed, Flash and Java did some solve a lot of problems that JavaScript did not. JavaScript won out because it was browser-native and now WebAssembly is gaining traction because JavaScript is still not that great. TypeScript is solid, but that took years of development and Microsoft resources to launch.

terribleperson 3y ago
Runescape was crazy for the time (pre-WoW). A full-featured MMO you could play on a wide variety of computers without downloading or installing anything. All you needed was Java.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  All you needed was to download a new monthly version of 50MB of JRE and install it on your virus-prone Windows XP machine and open up about 7 new holes in your system with each patch.
  - mike_hearn 3y ago
    Bear in mind you also had to update Netscape Navigator, IE, Flash and half your apps too. People didn't do it but you were supposed to.
  - terribleperson 3y ago
    You probably had the JRE installed already, unless you were particularly security-conscious. Even many who were security conscious had it installed. Runescape was also compatible with the MSJVM, though the window of time where that mattered was short.
chrisco255 3y ago
If Java was perfect, Jagex the creator of Runescape, wouldn't have felt compelled to create its own custom scripting language, RuneScript, in 2004, which it very much did: https://web.archive.org/web/20080615044119/http://archive.thestandard.com/article.php?story=200403031708187 https://web.archive.org/web/20080615044119/http://archive.th... https://runescape.wiki/w/RuneScript https://runescape.wiki/w/RuneScript Far more apps were written in Flash than in Java Applets. Java Applets were problematic for their large file size and memory requirements. You would also need to regularly download updates for the runtime and manually run through an installer on the base operating system in order to get applets to work. They were also a security nightmare, and critical vulnerabilities continued right up until Applets were finally canned for good in 2013: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2013/01/10/oracle-java-7-security-manager-bypass-vulnerability https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2013/01/10/oracle-ja... Flash had plenty of its own vulnerabilities, but it was at least efficient for what it did with the network resources of the time. I know the history of the web, and I know JS wasn't practical for a lot of complex apps before Chrome's v8 engine came out in 2008. That being said, it was still plenty powerful enough for apps like Gmail and Facebook. I'm not even criticizing these technologies for existing or having been important plugins of the web at one time, I very much understand why they were used and why JS wasn't. HTML had no native video encoding, but also, the browser war held back the web standards a great deal as companies competed on the peripheral features of the web like video encoding and Silverlight vs Flash. Video codec encoding was such a mess for such a long time due to the issues with MP4 and all the patent nightmare mess that unfortunately took way longer than it should have. At least Adobe could bypass a lot of that without having to deal with the Microsoft vs Mozilla vs Apple vs Google business. And Adobe could cover the license fees for any tech it needed with its editor prices. I get it. My point, however, is that those other technologies introduced different tradeoffs in compile time size, runtime performance, proprietary tech stack (Java is still owned by Oracle, not an open standard, to this day), mobile compatibility, etc. And none of them would have satisfied all the requirements for the web then or now. Meanwhile, since the web was able to evolve, and open standards got better and browser compatibility got better, JS is now a pretty good choice.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  > Video codec encoding was such a mess for such a long time due to the issues with MP4 and all the patent nightmare mess that unfortunately took way longer than it should have. Dude this isn't even wrong. It's just nonsensical and ahistorical.

terribleperson 3y ago

Runescape was crazy for the time (pre-WoW). A full-featured MMO you could play on a wide variety of computers without downloading or installing anything. All you needed was Java.

chrisco255 3y ago
All you needed was to download a new monthly version of 50MB of JRE and install it on your virus-prone Windows XP machine and open up about 7 new holes in your system with each patch.
- mike_hearn 3y ago
  Bear in mind you also had to update Netscape Navigator, IE, Flash and half your apps too. People didn't do it but you were supposed to.
- terribleperson 3y ago
  You probably had the JRE installed already, unless you were particularly security-conscious. Even many who were security conscious had it installed. Runescape was also compatible with the MSJVM, though the window of time where that mattered was short.

chrisco255 3y ago

If Java was perfect, Jagex the creator of Runescape, wouldn't have felt compelled to create its own custom scripting language, RuneScript, in 2004, which it very much did: https://web.archive.org/web/20080615044119/http://archive.thestandard.com/article.php?story=200403031708187 https://web.archive.org/web/20080615044119/http://archive.th... https://runescape.wiki/w/RuneScript https://runescape.wiki/w/RuneScript Far more apps were written in Flash than in Java Applets. Java Applets were problematic for their large file size and memory requirements. You would also need to regularly download updates for the runtime and manually run through an installer on the base operating system in order to get applets to work. They were also a security nightmare, and critical vulnerabilities continued right up until Applets were finally canned for good in 2013: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2013/01/10/oracle-java-7-security-manager-bypass-vulnerability https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2013/01/10/oracle-ja... Flash had plenty of its own vulnerabilities, but it was at least efficient for what it did with the network resources of the time. I know the history of the web, and I know JS wasn't practical for a lot of complex apps before Chrome's v8 engine came out in 2008. That being said, it was still plenty powerful enough for apps like Gmail and Facebook. I'm not even criticizing these technologies for existing or having been important plugins of the web at one time, I very much understand why they were used and why JS wasn't. HTML had no native video encoding, but also, the browser war held back the web standards a great deal as companies competed on the peripheral features of the web like video encoding and Silverlight vs Flash. Video codec encoding was such a mess for such a long time due to the issues with MP4 and all the patent nightmare mess that unfortunately took way longer than it should have. At least Adobe could bypass a lot of that without having to deal with the Microsoft vs Mozilla vs Apple vs Google business. And Adobe could cover the license fees for any tech it needed with its editor prices. I get it. My point, however, is that those other technologies introduced different tradeoffs in compile time size, runtime performance, proprietary tech stack (Java is still owned by Oracle, not an open standard, to this day), mobile compatibility, etc. And none of them would have satisfied all the requirements for the web then or now. Meanwhile, since the web was able to evolve, and open standards got better and browser compatibility got better, JS is now a pretty good choice.

giantrobot 3y ago
> Video codec encoding was such a mess for such a long time due to the issues with MP4 and all the patent nightmare mess that unfortunately took way longer than it should have. Dude this isn't even wrong. It's just nonsensical and ahistorical.