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Applets are officially gone, but Java in the browser is better

(frequal.com)
78 points pjmlp | 8 comments | 08 Dec 25 08:16 UTC | HN request time: 1.129s | source | bottom
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kstrauser ◴[08 Dec 25 08:28 UTC] No.46189780[source]▶
> In the 2000's, politics interfered and browser vendors removed plug-in support, instead preferring their own walled gardens and restricted sandboxes

That's one way to say it. The more common way was that users got tired of crappy plugins crashing their browsers, and browser devs got tired of endless complaints from their users.

It wasn't "politics" of any sort that made browsers sandbox everything. It was the insane number of crashes, out-of-memories, pegged CPUs, and security vulnerabilities that pushed things over the edge. You can only sit through so many dozens of Adobe 0-days before it starts to grate.

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exDM69 ◴[08 Dec 25 08:34 UTC] No.46189829[source]▶
Exactly.

Java was so buggy and had so many security issues about 20 years ago that my local authorities gave a security advisory to not install it at all in end user/home computers. That finally forced the hand of some banks to stop using it for online banking apps.

Flash also had a long run of security issues.

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1. cube00 ◴[08 Dec 25 09:04 UTC] No.46190042[source]▶
> banks to stop using it for online banking apps

I never understood why so many banks flocked to building their online banking in applets when it wasn't like you needed anything more advanced than HTML to view balances and make transactions.

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2. wiseowise ◴[08 Dec 25 09:21 UTC] No.46190168[source]▶
Because they’ve hired a bunch of Java devs that don’t know anything outside of Java?
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3. 72deluxe ◴[08 Dec 25 10:09 UTC] No.46190546[source]▶
Amusingly, we see the repeat of this in "desktop" apps that are just web technologies in a browser, wasting CPU time and RAM for "ease" of development. (I don't think it's easier at all - a mess of JS callbacks makes it difficult to see the initiator of anything).
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4. wiseowise ◴[08 Dec 25 10:54 UTC] No.46190867{3}[source]▶
> Amusingly, we see the repeat of this in "desktop" apps that are just web technologies in a browser, wasting CPU time and RAM for "ease" of development.

Web is chosen because it is the fastest way to hit all platforms, not because it's a skill issue.

> a mess of JS callbacks makes it difficult to see the initiator of anything

Async/await is available in most browsers since 2017, what year are you from?

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5. elric ◴[08 Dec 25 10:59 UTC] No.46190899[source]▶
I'm getting the impression you're conveniently ignoring how piss poor HTML/AJAX/JS capabilities were back then, or even how slow internet speeds were.

Applets could do things that JS could not. Some bank applets did client side crypto with keys that were on the device. Good luck doing that in JS back then. My bank's applet could cope with connection losses so I could queue a payment while dialup did it's thing.

6. theandrewbailey ◴[08 Dec 25 11:37 UTC] No.46191130[source]▶
Java Servlets and JSPs output HTML. I've been building a blog with them for over 15 years.
7. im3w1l ◴[09 Dec 25 11:07 UTC] No.46203573[source]▶
Java did many things very right. It's a really fast language. It's memory safe. It could run anywhere. It had well-thought out namespacing at a time where namespacing was a concept most people barely knew they needed it. It had an advanced security model.

It was a very reasonable bet at the time imo.

8. 72deluxe ◴[09 Dec 25 11:52 UTC] No.46203895{4}[source]▶
I think the initial idea of being the fast to hit all platforms was the idea, but this has meant a lack of skill in developers who don't know about each platform, so you end up with a mess of apps that attempt to (badly) replicate native elements like menus.

You are right about async/await. I am old! (But I still find the development of software in a large JS system unmanageable versus old C++ development approaches).