Java's Greatest Missed Opportunity?

jg21 writes "It looks like Bruce Eckel has hit the nail on the head again. No sooner did he finish stirring debate by writing about the 'departure of the Java hyper-enthusiasts,' previously discussed here on Slashdot, than he now rubs salt in the wound by highlighting in AJAXWorld Magazine how and why Java missed its golden opportunity to become the language undergirding Rich Internet Applications. He comments: 'We must ask why Java applets haven't become ubiquitous on the internet as the client-side standard for RIAs....This is an especially poignant question because Gosling and team justified rushing Java out the door (thus casting in stone many poorly-considered decisions) so that it could enable the internet revolution. That's why the AWT and Applets were thrown in at the last second, reportedly taking a month from conception to completion.'"

Missed the Boat on Missing the Boat

[AKAImBatman]

Mr. Eckel seems to forget that Java Applets were quite popular back in their day. But for much of the same reason that web users balked at Flash and Plugins, web users balked at Java. It was large, slowed down the browsing experience, and just didn't integrate all that well with the webpage.

Java eventually found its niche in server side programming. At that point Java Applets died. They were a nice idea, but they're effectively dead now and the web is better for it. There was no missed opportunity, only an opportunity that didn't pan out. In exchange, however, Java gained new opportunities in consumer areas like Video Game Development. Commercial games are slowly starting to deploy Java technology. But since one OpenGL/DirectX game looks just like another, who can tell it's Java? And that's a beautiful situation to be in. :)

Oh, and guess what's driving many (most?) of the SOAP/XML/RPC interfaces that AJAX applications use? You guessed it. ;)

JNLP, a.k.a. Java WebStart, was supposed to solve some of these problems to create easy-install desktop applications. I think the reason that JNLP hasn't become commonly used can be summed up by looking at https://aerith.dev.java.net/ [java.net], a page for one of the flagship "Cool JavaOne Demos." If you click on the JNLP version link on that page, it will appear to start up, downloading a bunch of stuff and asking you questions. And then it does nothing. No error messages or any information to tell you what happened. Repeated attempts yield the same results, only faster because the requisite files have already been downloaded. At least, that was my experience. If it worked for you, I'd say that's even worse--it randomly works on some platforms and not others. How do you debug such a thing?

I bet 10 bucks that Mr. Eckel's 3D card drivers are out of date or not installed. The application he linked to uses JOGL (Java OpenGL bindings), so if his computer is unable to run OpenGL, he will be unable to run the app. It's a rare issue, but it happens. The easy way of debugging the app is to either bring up the Java Console through the Coffee Cup in the system tray, or to go into the Java Web Start settings and enable the console (or logging!) there. Easy, peasy. :)

Oh, and Mr. Eckel? Web Technology has not yet begun to fight. At least if the WHATWG specs [whatwg.org] have anything to say about it.

Java Applets

[nmb3000]

Honestly? I'm glad Java applets' popularity has died. I have always hated pages that make use of Java, primarily because the applets are traditionally slow and clunky, and cause all sorts of problems for the browser.

Flash usually loads fast, has good response, and have great interfaces. Java usually loads slow (and by slow I mean that in the time it takes the Flash applet to download and be ready to use, the JVM has just started) and has a poor interface with slow response. More "industrial" use of Javascript has also removed the need for many of these client-side applications.

Good riddance is my response.

Article's autho works for a rival company, ignore.

[bockelboy]

Wait, the guy who has been hired by Adobe to be the tech evangelist for Flex doesn't like Java? (Click on his profile in the article)

What's this you say, he is writing an article which bashes Java for writing web applets and uses a series of questionable logic approaches to advocate Flex for web applets?

Sheesh, if I was writing the summary for this article, it would have been "Java's Greatest Missed Opportunity WAS NOT BEING THIS AWESOME PRODUCT CALLED FLEX WHICH ADOBE MAKES! BUY FLEX!"

Congratulations all of you who are arguing about the merits of Java - you've been astroturfed!

Re:Java ended up being the next COBOL.

[Billly Gates]

Java is being continued and development is quite exciting. Unlike Cobol it has a very rich library and performance has been improved drastically with java5 and now java6. However like C its not really appropriate as a n applet language.

Also java 6 has native GTK and Windows icons and fonts.

Re:Lemme guess...Microsoft stopped bundling Java?

[md17]

You can read the original version here:
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread= 193593 [artima.com]

The answer is obvious

[QuietLagoon]

We must ask why Java applets haven't become ubiquitous on the internet as the client-side standard for RIAs....

The Java runtime that Microsoft distributed with Internet Explorer was non-standard. Microsoft used that lack of standards compliance to make it appear as if client-side Java did not work correctly, effectively slowing down Java's acceptance in favor of Microsoft's Active-X technology.

IntERnet != IntRAnet for Java Desktop Applications

[Roman Coder]

Something to consider, Java/Swing is great for developing Intranet applications in businesses. So when people say Java is dying, and points to the lack of applets, that's not the whole story. Fortune 100 companies use Java/Swing/WebStart to develop their business applications. I know, I make a living writing the programs for these Fortune 100 companies. Someone else posted about how Java is the new Cobol, and in some sense that is true.

Also, the writer of the article states this in his article...

(Full disclosure: I'm in the process of working out a consulting contract with Adobe, to help them teach people about Flex. But long before this, I became convinced that Flash, and Flex in particular, was the best solution for the user-interface problem, and I began writing this article long before Adobe expressed interest in my assistance).

Yes I know he wrote (and supported) Java books in the past, but his current career focus is somewhere else, and I would ask all of you to consider that it may be coloring how he looks at Java currently.

Re:But it's too late.

[Animats]

VRML was supposed to be replaced by X3D [web3d.org], which is simply VRML 97 with XML delimiters instead of VRML delimiters. "Spinning logos in only 40 bytes" were promised. That went nowhere for years. But, surprisingly, it's coming back. But for completely different applications. Not virtual worlds, but 3D images of industrial gear.

Re:usually

[leenks]

To some platforms. Flash9 support only just came out for x86 linux, there is no support x86_64, PPC etc, and no support for Solaris - let alone anything more unusual.

Re:Flash and Plugins

[NuShrike]

Many might not remember that Flash was once FutureWave Splash [adobe.com] by the same guy who did that great oldie game Dark Castle and Beyond Castle for the Mac.

FutureWave Animator sorta competed against Shockwave well that Macromedia bought them and renamed it Flash, and it's been "siblings" with Shockwave ever since.

Gates, not McNealy, rejected any JDK 1.1.18 ?

[shis-ka-bob]

Gates explains that implementing AWT was a disaster for Microsoft because Java apps look as good as windows applications, see http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_5879. pdf [iowaconsumercase.org] Read how Gates dislikes JFC at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6109. pdf [iowaconsumercase.org] Read about plans to 'undermine Sun' at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6114. pdf [iowaconsumercase.org] Then read Microsoft's view on implementing JDK 1.2 (to quote 'no fucking way') at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_2708.p df [iowaconsumercase.org] So who limited the JDK to 1.1.18 ?

Re:The answer is obvious

[anomalous cohort]

The reason that both Java Applets and Active-X applets failed where AJAX has taken off is that JavaScript and XmlHttpRequest are available as part of and are deeply integrated with every modern browser.

Mod parent up. Given two application stacks of equal feature/functionality merit, choose the one with the least TCO. The more software dependencies, the more likely that there will be problems with the client side install, the higher the TCO.

I am not a big fan of Java Script and would prefer to code Java applets. However, the prototype library [prototypejs.org] and the debugger [mozilla.org] mitigates most of my complaints.