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.'"

Comments

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/, 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 have anything to say about it.

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 Read how Gates dislikes JFC at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6109. pdf Read about plans to 'undermine Sun' at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6114. pdf 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 So who limited the JDK to 1.1.18 ?