Showing messages 1 through 58 of 58.

• lack of tool like Flash
  2006-02-06 14:11:16 endlesslove [Reply | View]
  
  I think, one thing that makes the flash successful is the presence of the Flash IDE. This tool made Flash developers create flash multimedia easily.
  
  IMO, if Java enhance its multimedia capability and provide a drag-and-drop tool like that of Flash to create multimedia, applets will be seen again scattered on the web.
• Microsoft do not want Java to Succeed.
  2006-03-31 23:18:18 sanjaymca [Reply | View]
  
  There is no problem with Java. I feel Microsoft Explorer need to be enhanced.
  
  But Microsoft do not want Java to suceed as it is its competitor to VB & C++ languages.
  
  If IE is improved all Applet problems can be solved.
  
  Bye
  Sanjay
  http://www.getclub.com/Sanjay.html

• Plug-in's Common DOM API not standard
  2006-02-02 21:21:50 dtbullock [Reply | View]
  
  It's still in a com.sun.* package.

• applet lifecycle bound by page lifecycle
  2006-02-02 21:18:59 dtbullock [Reply | View]
  
  That's the killer, IMHO.

• "10 sec browser lock/ugly grey box"
  2006-02-02 21:17:52 dtbullock [Reply | View]
  
  This (well characterised) delay at startup is certainly one of the problems.

• "10 sec browser lock/ugly grey box"
  2006-02-02 21:17:34 dtbullock [Reply | View]
  
  This (well characterised) delay at startup is certainly one of the problems.

• no GroupLayout in Java 6?
  2006-01-31 09:07:34 netsql [Reply | View]
  
  That 's problem. Otherwise it's good.
  Look at PointCast.com which is Swing based as ex.
  .V

• Takes too long to load
  2006-01-31 04:23:07 enricod [Reply | View]
  
  Applets take too long to load, and the plugin freezes the browser for 10-20 seconds.
  Simply unacceptable.
  For me this is the main reason to avoid applets.
  Please solve this problem, learn from Flash plugin, and applets will gain popularity.
• Takes too long to load
  2006-02-02 03:53:57 nightraver [Reply | View]
  
  I agree with him, it takes too long to load and it hangs or crash too
  
  Not only the applet, but too Java applications it often hangs or crash!
  
  The only that's acceptable is the: Java servlet.
  
  Generally...I "realy" think that Sun's Java developer must SEE at Microsoft's development of C# with Visual Studio .NET 2005, and Macromedia with their Macromedia Flash. Look at their "STRONG" points.

• z-index
  2006-01-30 08:42:48 jdoe1 [Reply | View]
  
  The main problem preventing use of applets in my current application is that applets don't respect the z-index. The applet is always on top of other elements. My site uses drop down DHTML menus. When we tried to use applets the menu goes behind the applet no matter the z-index setting. Applets should play nicely with other things on the page. ActiveX seems to have the same problem. Flash is the only thing that I have found that uses the z-index.
• z-index
  2006-01-30 12:01:24 linuxhippy [Reply | View]
  
  This is only the case with Windows, on Linux we see broken dhtml-menus appearing behind flash almost everywhere making it not possible to navigate through the web-page!

• Better use webstart
  2006-01-30 06:53:29 uhilger [Reply | View]
  
  either use an application that requires a browser *only* or use a web started Java application clearly indicating that Java is required on the client first (with a "get Java" button nearby).
  
  Applets would have worked better if all major browser vendors would have included the Plug-In more consequently. As IE dominates the browser space and does require to install Java before applets work, a developer can build Swing apps without the requirement to run inside a browser right away.

• Applets...
  2006-01-30 06:03:31 linuxhippy [Reply | View]
  
  First I think applets don't have success because of: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/flozano/
  
  if you think applet load to slow please vote for: http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6364904
  
  

• Resource hogs
  2006-01-30 01:05:22 aaime [Reply | View]
  
  Applets have failed because they are resource hogs, and because it takes too much time to download the JRE.
  I am a Java programmer, yet I'm not happy when I find a page that uses applets, because there is a quite noticeable lag (even if I already have a java IDE up and I'm using Java 5), and because the java runtime will stay loaded and suck memory even when I left the pages using applets.
  I keep an eye on the system tray, if the java icon appears, I close all of the firefox windows and restart it, otherwise I keep the browser open all the day...
• Resource hogs
  2006-02-02 12:40:54 otigli [Reply | View]
  
  Ditto. JRE is an overkill for applets. Make the VM very light weight, stripped-down version of the JRE. Take a look at the Flash model. It has very small footprint. Can be downloaded and installed within minute(s). No admin level installation required. So simple and elegant. I am always amazed with the fact that what Macromedia (now Adobe) accomplished and hit the sweet spot on the web long time ago. Isn't it time to learn from all of these?
  Ogun TIGLI

• Webstart concern
  2006-01-29 19:19:29 ilazarte [Reply | View]
  
  One thing to add, The webstart application loader really needs to be made more attractive. Your average user expects top notch appearance because, like it or not, it's integral to the web experience and important factor that contributes to trust.
  
  Make that horribly ugly webstart click path simpler and more attractive, and I'll feel a lot better about integrating it on a page.

• Users hate downloading large plugins
  2006-01-29 17:38:48 prunge [Reply | View]
  
  Even with broadband nowadays, users that don't have the JRE have to wait a while for the download to occur.
  
  Quite a few users would simply close your page rather than waiting a few minutes for a plugin to download. So if you were building, say, an online shop you have already lost a certain percentage of users just for using applets in your pages.

• The world is moving on, but there is hope.
  2006-01-29 14:14:56 ilazarte [Reply | View]
  
  Our manager wont allow them to be deployed at our work for several reasons,
  1. He's aware there are several alternative technologies that satisfy the applet scope: Ajax and Flash.
  2. Applets seem to fail to often too quickly, and he's concerned about the technologies stability.
  
  While I haven't any work into them, my assessment is pretty much the same. Poor usability, established technologies seem to do the job better.
  
  However, there is a hope:
  http://www.processing.org is an example of a great framework for the technology.
  
  What the processing team has realized is that full featured web apps aren't what the applet's best usage is. Instead, focus on the flash and the multimedia delivery. How many Macromedia Flash guis are really taken seriously? Flash itself is going to have ot work really damn hard to not lose it's Component usage against Ajax enabled HTML forms. And even where multimedia is concerned, there is a rumbling movement of people who are wrapping flash components in javascript for unified application development that is multimedia. Check out http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager/ for a great library that wraps flash in javascript so you dont have to code those ugly
  connectors.
  
  

  3. JRE is the wrong platform for applets. If Sun had stepped back and realized they needed a JBE (Java browser edition) which is more along the lines of SVG, Flash, Sparkle, without all the bulk of the JRE; things might be different. Let's face it, applets just need a runtime like Flash: high level visual/audio framework, XML/HTTP communication, and basic (preferably dynamic!) scripting. Flash is popular because it makes eye-candy easy, has a scripting language (JS), and is backed by a great IDE for *designers*. It's almost laughable the lead Sun had on Macromedia, and yet Flash is everywhere and Java applets are rare!

  
  
  A scripting interface would be great, but more importantly there needs to be a Java multimedia lowerlevel framework that makes all those cool audio/video effects possible within the browser. This Java needs this anyway, the community seems to be constantly unsatisfied by it's options (although LWJGL http://www.lwjgl.org is a nice provider of such items)
• The world is moving on, but there is hope.
  2006-01-30 12:04:09 linuxhippy [Reply | View]
  
  I don't think a "JBE" would be the right way to go - why clooning all the features of flash instead of using flash?!
  Java allows to create fully-featured applications inside a browser and that is what its used for. If you want blinking stuff with alpha-chanels but almost no functionality use flash. OpenLaszlo shows how "great" it works...
  
• The world is moving on, but there is hope.
  2006-02-02 16:21:21 ilazarte [Reply | View]
  
  Sorry, that wasn't my input. I was just quoting someone who had spoken further down the line. I don't believe a JBE should exist.
  
  I guess we disagree on the usage of applets, but maybe the perspectives merit categorization:
  
  1. flashy multimedia stuff
  2. integrated "mini" complex guis
  3. complete navigation application
  
  To me, 1 and 2 are great targets for the applet audience. Fast loading, low(er) security for sophisticated behavior, but emphasis on fast and flexible. A complex mini stock reader, a cool graphics app that does all sorts of multi-media stuff. The power of the full JRE in a little sweet spot on the page.
  
  To me, 3 is the webstart application. A lot of behavior, a lot of code, full featured desktop app delivered to the client.
  
  With regard to 1 and 2, the delivery of those items should be fast and sweet, and it should impress people with functionality and behavior, not how long it takes to load.
  
  I wouldn't want a JBE, I want access to the full Java library, but it is important to me to be able to have a fast loading item. With number 3, thats little to no concern for me. I bleieve that if the user is aware that they are being delivered a highly sophistcated product, they are willing to wait a bit.

• Java plugin makes browsers unstable
  2006-01-29 14:08:43 johnjyates [Reply | View]
  
  I switched from IE on XP to Firefox on Suse mainly because I was so frustrated with the instability and memory consumption of Java on Windows. Little did I know then, it wasn't a MS conspiracy that Java wasn't working well, SOME of the problem was that the Java community failed to provide a sleek Java plugin. I've now run Java on OSX which PROVED Java can preform as well as any native code. On Windows we know Java stinks because MS won't allow it to be optimized. But what's the excuse for Linux and Firefox!?!?
  
  I now use Firefox on Suse with Java NOT enabled for one reason - when Java is enabled the browser becomes unresponsive with 15 Firefox tabs/windows open. With Java turned off I can go higher than 30! And that's without any actual Java apps running! That's just for the plugin to exist. Even stand alone Swing apps perform almost as poorly on Linux as they do on Windows - and sadly they are even more out of tune with native widgets in KDE/Gnome.
  
  Pathetic.
  
  I once tried to run JBoss and the JBoss console applet on the same machine - huge mistake. JBoss sucked up 400Mb and the console applet sucked up a whopping 350Mb. Enough to overwhelm the memory and swap of any average PC. After trying to open another Firefox window I actually CRASHED my Suse Desktop for the first time. Imagine my embarrassment and shame at the irony that after switching to Linux FOR BETTER JAVA SUPPORT it was Java itself that brought my Linux box to it's knees.
  
  You know that when a simple little console program uses almost as much memory as a massive application server hosting over 30 services that something in the plugin architecture has gone foul.
  
  While still a Java zealot I now exclusively write server side Java and keep my clients Java-free (unless on OSX).
  
  There is no excuse for this. Sun, IBM, Oracle, et al need to wake up and fix this mess before we all switch to dot-net. As it stands today, I (as big a Java fan as can be) would be more inclined to try writing a client using Mono or SWT than trying out Mustang's Swing.
  
  It's just sad. Pathetic and sad.
  
  John J Yates
• Java plugin makes browsers unstable
  2006-01-30 10:20:00 denka [Reply | View]
  
  to switch to Linux for better Java support? Wow...
  
  Anyway, wasn't it JBoss that brought your system to its knees? From what you told us, it was.
  
  Also, performance on KDE/Gnome is different, please don't mix it all up as equally poor.

• Deployment
  2006-01-29 13:12:49 tackline [Reply | View]
  
  

  Take this quote for example:

  <blockquoute>Critically, the new Web Client will enable PROIV developers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprises to deploy applications over an intranet or ASP, more rapidly than JavaSuite. Alicia Aldis, UK Managing Director, PROIV, says: "The main criticism of Java is that it is very slow. PROIV has never suffered from such drawbacks, and we carried this philosophy forward when developing our Web Client. Web integration is now easier than ever before for enterprises, developers and ISVs."</blockquoute>

  Note the careful use of the phrase "the main criticism". The development Java version of the client was actually significantly faster than the C++ version. All that's left is deployment.

• Problem with Applets
  2006-01-29 13:02:33 atehrani [Reply | View]
  
  At the time the applets were available the tools were not up to par to allow for widespread use. The compatability issues between the Sun JVM and the Microsoft JVM. The long load times.
  
  It saddens me to see Flash so promenant, there is no reason today, why an applet cannot provide the same functionality.

• Its the masses that make or break stuff not the classes
  2006-01-29 02:09:26 rahul31 [Reply | View]
  
  Applets when they came out were pretty much useful only for developers and those who fascinated 'something new'. This was not even 10% of the market as Sun would have expected to cover.
  
  Comes in broadband, excellent time to spread Applet mania, but alas also comes in Microsoft, with more than 94% of browser and 80% of OS market, also with a softcorner for Sun. also with not fully compatible jvm 1.1, lawsuits blah blah etc..... making sure the Applet user percentage remain static if not worse.
  
  Then there were other reasons like "fairly complex security cert creation and deployment" and of course that humongous size of new jvms.... 15MB!! that alone wud make me not want to install a PLUGIN that big, and then wait for it to show me something like "hello user , do u like my applet?? i am a java newbie hee hee" !!!
  
  That said... personally I find applets very useful. I have made really cool applets (like remote desktop using tightVNC behind proxy and firewalls) and continue to use them. And oh....if anybody is noticing.... there seems to be growth in number of applets for . again?!! ... hmmm ... or maybe its just a figment of my own imagination! ;)

• why applets earned a bad reputation
  2006-01-29 00:30:17 tommi_kuenneth [Reply | View]
  
  IMHO applets earned a bad reputation for two main reasons:
  
  1) When the first big size applets appeared, bandwidth still was an issue: it took ages to download them. And they sometimes did not work as expected (not to say they were buggy :-)) because we all lacked experience at that time
  
  2) Ordinary users often had/have problems with terminology: "Java" got mixed up with "JavaScript" and security concerns of the latter where (incorrectly, of course) applied to Java as well. This often led to the (sad) advice of disabling Java in the browser.
  
  Besides these two points, deployment has always been an issue. What happens if not Java runtime is on the target system? The same applies to Web Start, of ourse. I think Sun needs to provide some sort of unified installation process for runtime environments. What I have in mind is a download page at java.com which can be passed arguments that define what virtual machine is needed by a program. This downloadpage should try to determine if Java is already installed and otherwise install the runtime. After download and installation is complete it should redirect the user to the original page so he can then use/download the program that needs the vm.

• BTW, fix the discussion groups
  2006-01-28 22:10:56 spullara [Reply | View]
  
  New comments go at the end. The page after a successful post should show you your post in context. Otherwise you wouldn't see so many dups.

• Applets should not be just plugins
  2006-01-28 22:09:41 spullara [Reply | View]
  
  Applets are not interesting because they are treated the same as plugins, i.e. a square in the page in a separate world from the rest of the real web application. If instead applets gave you full access to the DOM of the page like JavaScript has you could write some very interesting applets that would crush existing AJAX applications like bugs. This would also solve the UI problem that applets have and make them seemless with the rest of the page -- because they would just generate HTML...
• Applets should not be just plugins
  2006-01-29 12:33:21 tackline [Reply | View]
  
  

  Applets have been able to access the DOM since 1.4. However, I'm not aware of anyone bothering to use it.

  http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/plugin/dom/index.html

• Applets
  2006-01-28 22:09:05 spullara [Reply | View]
  
  Applets are not interesting because they are treated the same as plugins, i.e. a square in the page in a separate world from the rest of the real web application. If instead applets gave you full access to the DOM of the page like JavaScript has you could write some very interesting applets that would crush existing AJAX applications like bugs. This would also solve the UI problem that applets have and make them seemless with the rest of the page -- because they would just generate HTML...
• Applets
  2006-02-18 10:17:49 ronda67 [Reply | View]
  
  I have no idea, about java, except that a lot of game sites require you to have it installed to play. My problem is that I have; Java SE Runtime Environment verison 6, MS DirectX SDK Feb 2006 & MS VM. The page wont' even load at all.
  But even before I had to get a new motherboard, the website would start, the game would start loading, then close out and the first window would change and tell me "Unable to connect to server". I have contacted Comcast & did everything they told me to do, plus the game tech. & again I did everything they said. Why can't I play any games on line? Not yahoo, Pogo or Slingo. Can someone please help, email me; ronda67@comcast.net
• Applets
  2006-01-30 07:21:59 jhogan [Reply | View]
  
  The "real" application is just static html and javascript,... The applet is running in the much more capable world of the JVM. Applets can also provide AJAX like functionality in a more sophisticated fashion than can be achieved with AJAX, and finally applets can communicate with the DOM via jaws. Get your facts together.

• Applets
  2006-01-28 22:07:00 spullara [Reply | View]
  
  Applets are not interesting because they are treated the same as plugins, i.e. a square in the page in a separate world from the rest of the real web application. If instead applets gave you full access to the DOM of the page like JavaScript has you could write some very interesting applets that would crush existing AJAX applications like bugs. This would also solve the UI problem that applets have and make them seemless with the rest of the page -- because they would just generate HTML...
• Applets
  2006-02-02 21:11:51 dtbullock [Reply | View]
  
  Ever seen this?
  
  http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/plugin/dom/index.html

• applets have poor fonts
  2006-01-28 18:56:20 tcowan [Reply | View]
  
  The first thing I always notice with applets is that the fonts are unattractive. The same goes for Linux. Designers pay much attention to kerning and font face...because it makes a tremendous difference in how professional the UI looks.
  The other thing about applets is that they rarely work...it's always some type of exception.
  

• Slow Startup / Many Stability Problems / Little installed basis
  2006-01-28 13:28:50 linuxhippy [Reply | View]
  
  I am currently creating applets and the main-problems we have is:
  * Slow initial loading time (for the jvm, not the applet-data). The java-cup animation made the whole thing a lot worse especially on slow computers.
  * Stability problems: Because of the many components/programs working together broken setups are not that uncommon.
  * The last problem is that many users have still old jvm's installed. Our applet is 1.1 compatible although all 1.1-jvms have a hard time working with such a large applet (~1000 classes).
  
  A real problem is that static versioning WAS BROKEN in 1.5_u6, if a developer decides to restrict the jvm his applet should run on sun should not make this descision for him!
  
  
  
  
  

• applets can be efficient
  2006-01-28 13:23:43 vinc [Reply | View]
  
  I admit it's difficult to actually secure applets behavior on the Internet. On the contrary, inside an intranet, it's possible to buid verry efficient distributed collaborative systems with applets on client side and servlets on server side.
• applets can be efficient
  2006-01-30 07:54:49 jhogan [Reply | View]
  
  I disagree. Applets are actually secure by default. They can't do anything outside the jvm unless specifically granted permissions to do so by jre security policy :)

• poll options
  2006-01-28 11:01:29 wilddonkey [Reply | View]
  
  Its amazing that a poll could even be created on this topic without a "10 sec browser lock/ugly grey box" option.

• Java Webstart
  2006-01-28 09:58:08 evickroy [Reply | View]
  
  I don't believe that there is a compeling reason to build Applets anymore since we now have Java Webstart. Webstart makes the Applet obsolete since the Applet unfortunately must be contained within an ugly browser.
• Java Webstart
  2006-02-02 12:55:37 otigli [Reply | View]
  
  Ugly browser? I don't think it is uglier than the UI of the Webstart! Actually, it is so easy to give a face lift to the Webstart so that it would look like a very nice professional application. Definitely, it has the potential. I still don't understand why they cannot fix these minor issues and make it so much usable for everyone.
  
  Ogun TIGLI

• I like Applets!
  2006-01-28 09:13:18 cajo [Reply | View]
  
  They can be extremely intuitive to develop, and very powerful. Unconvinced? Excellent! Then I simply ask you to take a quick look at this very short, but higly illustrative example.
  
  John
  
  

• Slow and unnecessary
  2006-01-28 00:37:57 pdoubleya [Reply | View]
  
  Much as I like the idea, and Java in general, applets are always slow (even if VM is warmed up and applet in cache) compared to the surrounding page. Most applets look bad, probably because the target community was programmers, not designers. And I get nothing for the trade-off: I just get a box in the middle of my web page that takes awhile to load, usually doesn't look good, and, most often, does one thing. What would make more sense is a very lightweight remote client stub that could be accessed reliably from JavaScript--a way to pull down just the client side of a web service, for example. That might be a good use for applets, who knows.

• A combination of the above...
  2006-01-27 23:12:34 roguexz [Reply | View]
  
  In my opinion the problems with Applets is that
  
  1. difficult to build a good UI, because one needs to keep in mind that the applet could sometime form the majority of the bulk data transfered over the wire
  
  2. Rather limiting from the browser perspective. The javascript <=> applet bi-directional communication is flaky, last time i tried something, it didnt quite work the same way on IE and Firefox.... which made me settle down with one-way communication javascript -> Java.
  
  3. another limitation from the browser side, is that you can really resize the applet dynamically.. We always need to set a height and width.. This is something that is not often done with HTML content.
  
  4. Packaging and deployment issues are faced by a lot of newbies.. The security restrictions can be circumvented by signing the jar file, but this information is one of the most frequently asked question... May be the documentation about Applets needs to be improved.
  
  5. I guess at the end, the bigest issue is the applet to applet communication on the same page.... There is no clear cut definition of how it should / could be done.
  
  6. Given that an applet is a singular unit, people are more comfortable working with Flash as it not only has a great UI builder but essential things like building polls / forms / animations are also provided for. Given the ease of building Flash documents, why would someone go through the pains of doing it as an applet?
  
  7. The oncoming of AJAX has further cut down the need of applets in the majority of the web applications.
  
  Unless there is a specific need for a singular component that does a lot of things at the backend (like communicating with various servers / desktops), there is not much use of the Java Applets.
  
  Just my views.
  
  thanks,
  Rogue

• Microsoft and poor starup/load time
  2006-01-27 22:11:06 bharathch [Reply | View]
  
  MS's incompatible JRE and poor startup/load performance (i don't remember how many times firefox froze/crashed when loading an applet) are the killers. I'd still love to deploy apps (with UI written in matisse) as applets as much as JNLPs.

• Rich Clients
  2006-01-27 21:37:36 bardubitzki [Reply | View]
  
  How simple it could be, Swing based applets as front end and Servlets as back end. I really hope Sun put more effort in solving the startup time problem.

• Takes too long to load
  2006-01-27 15:25:41 easye [Reply | View]
  
  Applets, no matter how small, no matter how beefy the machine always seems to take something like over 15-20 seconds to start doing anything. Presumably this is becaume the JVM takes this long to startup from a cold start. This is simply too long to expect a user to reasonably wait.

• Microsoft messed it up
  2006-01-27 12:47:30 zzc098 [Reply | View]
  
  when microsoft withdrew support most of the browser ended up with incompatible jre ..

• Locks up browsers
  2006-01-27 12:35:42 ljnelson [Reply | View]
  
  Make it so that people don't even know it's java. This is why Flash works so well.

• Microsoft
  2006-01-27 10:57:02 malcolmdavis [Reply | View]
  
  

  Microsoft did a wonderful job of screwing up the Applet market. The Microsoft JVM was not 100% compatible with the Java standard. Hence, applets were either written to the Microsoft or the Java standard, but not both. The compatibility issue caused HUGE problems with corporate IT.

  A little misunderstood.
  During Java infancy, OO and Java was misunderstood. Most Java applications looked more like bad structured programs. Added to the problem, novice developers were thrown into Applet development, and Applets had not gone through a refactoring. Applets from then on became the scourge of the Internet.

  I've seen great applets that are small and very effective. Better than AJAX, DHTML, or Flash. However it requires someone with knowledge of OO and Java.

  
  

• It locks up your browser when loading
  2006-01-27 10:40:24 keithkml [Reply | View]
  
  Java applets lock up every major browser for several seconds. I filed this as Java Bug 6267809.
  
  Despite numerous testimonials of embarrassing lockup times, Sun has marked this bug "Not a bug" and in the comments a developer wrote "This is not a defect."
  
  I urge you to post your own system specs and lockup times as comments to the bug, despite its "Not a bug" mark. You can visit this calculator applet to test with.

• Slow, ugly, unstable, hard to integrate
  2006-01-27 09:27:21 freericks [Reply | View]
  
  DHTML is optimally integrated, has no start-up cost, doesn't slow down my computer, and looks better. java-browser-integration often sucks.

• It's 2 very simple things
  2006-01-27 09:19:14 paulrivers [Reply | View]
  
  1. I would never, every write an applet for anything because browsers don't come with a JRE installed. It's that simple - no built in support.
  2. After that, applets came across as cludgy because of their terrible startup time. It was like when you open a pdf file now - you sit there and groan to yourself, know the browser window is going to lock up. Perhaps they've fixed/helped with this, but then see point #1.

• Why Flash and AJAX ate Applet's lunch
  2006-01-27 08:29:55 angben [Reply | View]
  
  It's amazing to think that Java applets are a decade old. Why did they never catch on? I think the reasons are, in this order:
  1. Most computers are sold without a JRE preinstalled.
  2. Sun reached out to developers and not designers.
  3. JRE is the wrong platform for applets. If Sun had stepped back and realized they needed a JBE (Java browser edition) which is more along the lines of SVG, Flash, Sparkle, without all the bulk of the JRE; things might be different. Let's face it, applets just need a runtime like Flash: high level visual/audio framework, XML/HTTP communication, and basic (preferably dynamic!) scripting. Flash is popular because it makes eye-candy easy, has a scripting language (JS), and is backed by a great IDE for *designers*. It's almost laughable the lead Sun had on Macromedia, and yet Flash is everywhere and Java applets are rare!
  4. Applets need a declarative, preferably XML, UI description format. Doing everything by code is, well, dumb.
  5. Sun allowed the name "Javascript" to be used by Netscape, permanently confusing the hell out of everyone in the dot.com boom that didn't deserve to being doing tech stuff because they couldn't understand the difference. (Which was, what, 99% of the people in tech during the dot.com boom?). This confused the hell out of everyone for a long time. The number of developers who have gotten callbacks on resumes and had to explain the difference probably numbers in the tens of thousands.
  6. Few compelling demos, probably in large part because of #2 above; i.e. it's hard to build nice applet demos when the entire framework hasn't been thought out for building nice applets
  7. Duke looked like a tooth. Just a tiny example of overall bad marketing.
  8. If Java had been licensed like OpenSolaris is now, all the above 7 things wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference, and applets would be everywhere. In other words, the hundreds of thousands of open source developers would have contributed to make Java applets what they should have been, instead of praying for necessary tweaks every two years when a new version of the JVM escaped the lab. (Forget the current Mustang process too -- it's too little, too late.)

• Ugly plugins, poor startup time, random bugs
  2006-01-27 07:57:39 tjpalmer [Reply | View]
  
  Java is slow and ugly to start up the first time. It's not silent and fast like Flash. It needs to stay out of the way of the user experience of the applet. And it just doesn't.

  And sometimes it gets worse. Not to say it's Sun's fault. I don't know. But in Firefox on my Mac, once an applet shows, it kills the use of my scroll wheel in Firefox until I restart the browser. So I've disabled applets there.

  And in Windows with VirusScan running, the first time starting up any particular VM grinds the machine to a halt for 20 seconds or so.

  So even the best case experience is less than ideal, and there are so many ugly quirks in the bad cases. I wouldn't dream of subjecting users to this kind of torture.

• Sorry for the dupe
  2006-01-27 07:58:59 tjpalmer [Reply | View]
  
  The site took me to some random page when I posted, so I thought it didn't work. Sorry for the duplicate post.

• Ugly plugins, poor startup time, random bugs
  2006-01-27 07:57:27 tjpalmer [Reply | View]
  
  Java is slow and ugly to start up the first time. It's not silent and fast like Flash. It needs to stay out of the way of the user experience of the applet. And it just doesn't.

  And sometimes it gets worse. Not to say it's Sun's fault. I don't know. But in Firefox on my Mac, once an applet shows, it kills the use of my scroll wheel in Firefox until I restart the browser. So I've disabled applets there.

  And in Windows with VirusScan running, the first time starting up any particular VM grinds the machine to a halt for 20 seconds or so.

  So even the best case experience is less than ideal, and there are so many ugly quirks in the bad cases. I wouldn't dream of subjecting users to this kind of torture.

• Applet lifecycle
  2006-01-27 07:22:17 smbell [Reply | View]
  
  The applet lifecycle, in terms of a user moving on and of the web page, especially now that tabbed browsing is so common (more likely for a user to move off of and come back to a page), is an annoying hastle with little benifit.
  
  For most basic things a well constructed web page/app is sufficient. If I really need/want that nice rich GUI I'll move to a Swing app.