3 ms·
What really funny here are few things. First, Sun should really have implemented its own browser. They basically already had something that shared most of what
by panick21_ 3y ago
What really funny here are few things.
First, Sun should really have implemented its own browser. They basically already had something that shared most of what a modern browser can do when they did NeWS. Basically NeWS that loads postscript over the internet is most of what a modern browser does. Sun should really have done its own browser, rather then do the deal with Netscape.
Second, Sun had developed Self and made it really fast. It shares a lot with Java Script and would have served perfectly fine in that roll. But instead it took 15-20 years until some of the same people who worked on Self and later Strongtalk to make JS fast at Google. Java Script could have been fast as soon as it came out if it was based on Self, rather then scripted together in a few weeks by Netscape.
I think Sun systematically messed up with the whole software division staring in the 80s and got worse in the 90s. Amazing things like NeWS were kill, tons of bad ideas were adopted that around Java/Corba that were clunky.
- lizknope 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HotJava https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HotJava > HotJava (later called HotJava Browser to distinguish it from HotJava Views) was a modular, extensible web browser from Sun Microsystems implemented in Java. Are you saying they should have added JavaScript to their Java based browser?
- _ea1k 3y agoI remember that and also remember them releasing a new version that literally didn't work on yahoo.com. I complained and they said some snarky comment about not complaining about things that were given for free. That browser didn't last long, and was terrible.
- lizknope 3y agoI only remember running it and rotating some 3D model of a helicopter or something within the browser.
- panick21_ 3y agoIt really was a demo, never a serious product.
- _ea1k 3y agoIt wasn't being marketed as just a demo at the time.
- panick21_ 3y agoThat's Sun management for you. At Sun some people wanted to build a browser and really invest into it, but Sun made deal with Netscape instead. And the HotJava thing never had to many resources for development. James Gosling tells stories of how hard it was and what it took to get basic demos running and then a little later its a product.
- _ea1k 3y agoSomehow that doesn't shock me. TBH, I'm amazed that Java developed the way it did, given their approach to leading the effort. I guess the market really was _that_ hungry for a solution to certain problems.
- panick21_ 3y agoI would have preferred the write a real browser in C that was far and add Self to it for Scripting and maybe Java Applets directly in the Browser. Implementing the browser itself in Java isn't a great idea, specially in the 90s.
- fauigerzigerk 3y ago>Second, Sun had developed Self and made it really fast. It shares a lot with Java Script and would have served perfectly fine in that roll. What it doesn't share with JavaScript is the C and Java-like syntax. They didn't want to risk yet another Lisp and Smalltalk disaster where something far superior was created and then almost nobody used it.
- panick21_ 3y agoThen change the syntax of it. Not that hard. JS was also scheme at first. But even so, even with 'C' syntax Java Script wasn't used much for a while.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoThey really did mess up their software division. So much lost potential. Sun, like many of the other Unix vendors of the time, wanted not only to invent the new world but to fully own and charge for it. Self only got open sourced long after it was of any interest or relevancy, NeWS never was, and the OpenLook stuff generally only got really "open" after Motif "standardized" (itself a joke since it never got actually used outside of proprietary-land) and it wasn't until well into the 21st century that the JDK became properly open sourced. But in fact the relative openness of Java at the time it was launched seemed like a bright spot in this, and in part this was why it was so ascendant through the 90s. BTW I like Self, but I actually don't think it would have made a good JS-equivalent in a document browser. It really is, like Smalltalk, something that wants to rebuild the whole world in its image, and not much of a "glue" language, like JS was initially pitched as.
- panick21_ 3y agoThe problem was they spend 10 year going on Java crazy but didn't actually develop many good products that made them money. At a time when IBM and others were actually making money from Java. I think Self could be made into that, it just a challenge of API and how its integrated. And at the end of the day you want to have a full featured language fully integrated anyway, as JS basically became overtime.