We're reinventing the wheel because the Java plugin didn't reach critical mass. There's never been a time that you could require Java in a web app and expect a

We're reinventing the wheel because the Java plugin didn't reach critical mass. There's never been a time that you could require Java in a web app and expect a trouble free experience for your users. Perhaps the browser/OS vendors and Oracle could have worked together to make this happen, but they didn't, and the world moved on.