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> We need a real bytecode for the web, we need it to be standardised and we need to push for browsers to support it. We had one. It was called Java. Actually,

> We need a real bytecode for the web, we need it to be standardised and we need to push for browsers to support it. We had one. It was called Java. Actually, we still have it, but it just has such a bad reputation now; users don't trust it because of "security" and developers don't trust it because of "public static cruft()" and "Oracle". But it is still quite capable. Did anyone else first play minecraft in a web applet? It worked incredibly well for me. So I argue that we do have a viable bytecode, we're just ignoring it.

mwcampbell 13y ago
Java is not vendor-neutral as JS is. That makes JS better.
- winter_blue 13y ago
  Not necessarily. Not having a single (hopefully benevolent) entity control a platform means poor standardization -- which leads --> to vendor-specific variants - and voila, you get to the HTML/JS mess that we have today.
pekk 13y ago
The experience sucks beyond compare, always has, and blaming the user isn't going to solve that. You have to download a separate plugin with stupid ads in it. If your version is wrong, it won't work or it won't work right. A number of things won't work unless you use the one from Oracle. If you are lucky, a little tray reminder obtrusively harasses you every few weeks to update to a new version. If you don't, you have to worry about unpatched vulnerabilities. Now you come across a page with an applet in it. This applet stuck inside a little rectangle on the page takes a few seconds to kick off at all. Most of the time it looks terrible once it's up. It isn't at all uncommon that it crashes. Many people have experienced this bringing down the browser or even hanging the computer, which is especially awesome when you didn't even ask for the thing to run. This isn't a matter of the users being stupid and not knowing what's good. This isn't good. It has never been good.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
protomyth 13y ago
But the JVM was never really part of the browser, it was a plug-in like Flash. If we had a way to include JVM byte code in a page and JVM had just as much access to the DOM as javascript then it would be useful.
smrtinsert 13y ago
Java moves ahead despite peoples continued misconceptions about it. There are js-based jvm bytecode interpreters: https://github.com/int3/doppio https://github.com/int3/doppio seems pretty nice.

mwcampbell 13y ago

Java is not vendor-neutral as JS is. That makes JS better.

winter_blue 13y ago
Not necessarily. Not having a single (hopefully benevolent) entity control a platform means poor standardization -- which leads --> to vendor-specific variants - and voila, you get to the HTML/JS mess that we have today.

pekk 13y ago

The experience sucks beyond compare, always has, and blaming the user isn't going to solve that. You have to download a separate plugin with stupid ads in it. If your version is wrong, it won't work or it won't work right. A number of things won't work unless you use the one from Oracle. If you are lucky, a little tray reminder obtrusively harasses you every few weeks to update to a new version. If you don't, you have to worry about unpatched vulnerabilities. Now you come across a page with an applet in it. This applet stuck inside a little rectangle on the page takes a few seconds to kick off at all. Most of the time it looks terrible once it's up. It isn't at all uncommon that it crashes. Many people have experienced this bringing down the browser or even hanging the computer, which is especially awesome when you didn't even ask for the thing to run. This isn't a matter of the users being stupid and not knowing what's good. This isn't good. It has never been good.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

protomyth 13y ago

But the JVM was never really part of the browser, it was a plug-in like Flash. If we had a way to include JVM byte code in a page and JVM had just as much access to the DOM as javascript then it would be useful.

smrtinsert 13y ago

Java moves ahead despite peoples continued misconceptions about it. There are js-based jvm bytecode interpreters: https://github.com/int3/doppio https://github.com/int3/doppio seems pretty nice.