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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.'"
To be clear, I'm not saying that Flash didn't eventually meet its goal. When Flash was first introduced, we ended up with entire websites written in Flash. Not to mention the overriding need to add those damn animations to corporate websites in the same manner that everyone's homepage had a reflecting pool or tree menu Java Applet.
Flash would have lost out as badly as Java, but judicious use of the plugin combined with an extremely small runtime brought it back from the brink of failure. But only flash. You'll notice that the spinoff technologies like Shockwave have all but disappeared, except for particular circumstances like some Web Games. (The same area in which Java Applets continue to live on as Zombies.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I agree. This guy found a proprietary solution that fits his purpose...and he's promoting it. This is a fluff piece for Flex.
He also said "We do see relatively amazing Ajax-based tools like GMail and the other Google tools which are slowly seducing me (but I repeat: it took Google to create those, not Joe garage-programmer)."
Look, Google did not invent AJAX. They were just the large company that had the balls to launch a major application using the technology. Joe gargage-programmer had been developing "AJAX" application for years. However, they did so on smaller custom apps. Also, many programmers were forced to support legacy browsers which severely limited the role of AJAX and its ease of implementation.
Google wasn't the first company with the technology to launch an AJAX app...they were the first ones with the balls to launch it. They basically drew the line in the sand on browser compatibility (with the help of Mozilla.) Microsoft could have done this years earlier...but chose not to. They basically decided to pursue and promote web standards and protocols...and brought javascript back to the forefront.
I don't know how Flex fits into this, but didn't Adobe hand over the code to Flash to Mozilla? I believe soon, REALLY SOON, you will be seeing more Actionscript/Javascript interaction natively in the browser. When that happens maybe you could return that license of Flex you paid so much for.