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> Early on, in the browser wars of the 90s, this WAS what they tried. Netscape and Sun worked together to bring Java to the browser, leading to infamous "applet

> Early on, in the browser wars of the 90s, this WAS what they tried. Netscape and Sun worked together to bring Java to the browser, leading to infamous "applets" that would take forever to load and have terrible UX, etc., but that ran in the browser in Java. > Then they decided to create Javascript to give the browser itself a scripting language, I don’t see how that’s a correct description of history. JavaScript is from December 1995 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript). Java technically was released earlier, on May 23 of that year (https://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2015/05/20/javas-20-years-of-innovation/?sh=73cd474311d7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2015/05/20/javas-20-year...), but (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)#Hi...) “Sun Microsystems released the first public implementation as Java 1.0 in 1996“. That’s after JavaScript became available on Netscape. Also, who would be “they”? Sun created Java and the JVM, but Netscape created JavaScript. I also don’t know whether Netscape helped Sun in bringing applets to the browser. Didn’t Sun use an existing API for browser plugins?

solardev 3y ago
That particular claim is from one of the articles sourced in the Wikipedia entry: https://exploringjs.com/es5/ch04.html https://exploringjs.com/es5/ch04.html It was so long ago that my memory isn't very reliable anymore, but I do remember that Java came out first and that's why they called it Javascript (to mooch off its popularity). Then as now, it was confusing and silly. Maybe Java came with desktop applets first, or released beta versions before 1.0? I can't remember for sure. But it was definitely a thing before Javascript.
- Someone 3y ago
  Thanks. My guess was that Java was released only for Sun hardware first, with the public release being more cross-platform. I also just read the link to https://web.archive.org/web/20070916144913/https://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease67.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070916144913/https://wp.netsca... “Netscape and Sun announce JavaScript”. Didn’t know that. Funny to read that they positioned it as “complementary to and integrated with Java” and “on the client, the scripts would glue together an assortment of Java applets and HTML form elements”. They also (“Java programs and JavaScript scripts are designed to run on both clients and servers”) mention running JavaScript server-side.
  - solardev 3y ago
    > Netscape and Sun announce JavaScript That's a fun trip down memory lane... From the article: > "JavaScript is a great way to get cross-platform scriptable access to databases and move the resulting data into Macromedia Shockwave, where it can be rendered, animated and made into live interactive multimedia for the Internet. JavaScript is also a promising core technology for the new multimedia publishing tool that Macromedia is building." - Bud Colligan, President and CEO, Macromedia Heh, either he was thinking REALLY far ahead to HTML5, or maybe at one point JS was supposed to power Flash, instead of ActionScript?

solardev 3y ago

That particular claim is from one of the articles sourced in the Wikipedia entry: https://exploringjs.com/es5/ch04.html https://exploringjs.com/es5/ch04.html It was so long ago that my memory isn't very reliable anymore, but I do remember that Java came out first and that's why they called it Javascript (to mooch off its popularity). Then as now, it was confusing and silly. Maybe Java came with desktop applets first, or released beta versions before 1.0? I can't remember for sure. But it was definitely a thing before Javascript.

Someone 3y ago
Thanks. My guess was that Java was released only for Sun hardware first, with the public release being more cross-platform. I also just read the link to https://web.archive.org/web/20070916144913/https://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease67.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070916144913/https://wp.netsca... “Netscape and Sun announce JavaScript”. Didn’t know that. Funny to read that they positioned it as “complementary to and integrated with Java” and “on the client, the scripts would glue together an assortment of Java applets and HTML form elements”. They also (“Java programs and JavaScript scripts are designed to run on both clients and servers”) mention running JavaScript server-side.
- solardev 3y ago
  > Netscape and Sun announce JavaScript That's a fun trip down memory lane... From the article: > "JavaScript is a great way to get cross-platform scriptable access to databases and move the resulting data into Macromedia Shockwave, where it can be rendered, animated and made into live interactive multimedia for the Internet. JavaScript is also a promising core technology for the new multimedia publishing tool that Macromedia is building." - Bud Colligan, President and CEO, Macromedia Heh, either he was thinking REALLY far ahead to HTML5, or maybe at one point JS was supposed to power Flash, instead of ActionScript?