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Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

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Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#211

Post by desmap »

vips7L wrote: post #143
desmap wrote: post #118

OT: I recently learned C++ after doing JS/TS for years. This was an eye-opener because there were so many similarities which JS inherited from C/C++. Plus stuff I've seen in other languages and environments. After this, I thought that everybody should learn C/C++ at school, it's like Latin to other languages (I learned Turbo Pascal at school and didn't like how it handled pointers and its overall elaborative style).

C/C++ isn't a language! They're completely separate.

I know this very well, still both have similarities to JS and eventually, C++ evolved from C. No need to be snarky.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#212

Post by DonHopkins »

hajile wrote: post #192
ChrisRR wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very odd, if someone nowadays called their language CSharpScript, they'd get slapped with a C&D

Everything was fine because Sun owned the Javascript trademark. Oracle now owns that trademark today https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75026640&caseType=SERIAL_... For what it's worth, Microsoft lost a lawsuit over their Java clone called J. Their Javascript clone was called JScript. They made .net and C# instead and probably would have tried to make a new web language except that there was no room. One could argue…

Now look at what's become of Sun's trademarked logo:

Zuckerberg’s not-so-subtle message to Facebook employees: Don’t end up like Sun Microsystems

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has put a pretty hefty reminder for Facebook employees to keep striving for relevancy right outside the front door. An aging Sun Microsystems sign, on the back side of the Facebook sign, is a well-placed message to them.

https://www.geekwire.com/2014/zuckerbergs-not-subtle-message...

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#213

Post by cicero »

I remember being very excited about this announcement. I had been learning about Java, but I only had an HP workstation, which ran HP-UX Unix at work, and a Macintosh at home. Neither of them had a Java implementation yet, but I could run Netscape Navigator with JavaScript. I gave an enthusiastic talk on JavaScript at the next meeting of our local Java Users Group.

However, as I got to know the language better, my enthusiasm dwindled due to what I thought to be a strange type system. Also, I got access to Java implementations on HP-UX and Macintosh, so I never went back to JS. This has always limited my ability to do web front-ends, but now I'm looking to using Blazor for that.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#214

Post by DonHopkins »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #130
ethbr0 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, why are / were Java applets so slow? I never dug into the ecosystem deeply enough to understand (plus a bit before my time). Was it JVM startup time, Java xfactory-begat-y-begat-z code init time, what? Also, applets run outside the browser, correct? I.e. on the browser's host system in a separate JVM process?

Sun seemed to have a real mental block when it came to applets - people screamed at them for years about performance and they refused to do anything about it. Indeed, in 1995 the simpliest applet would take several seconds to appear. In 2005 (about the time everyone stopped caring), the same applet would take ... several seconds to appear. They never got faster even as CPUs improved by several hundred percent. The Ap…

I always thought JIT should be spelled JATWPT, for Just At The Worst Possible Time (when the user's waiting for the app to start up).

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#215

Post by makecheck »

overkill28 wrote: post #36

I still don't know why they stuck the "Java" name on JavaScript. Very confusing when the two languages are completely unrelated. > Java programs and JavaScript scripts are designed to run on both clients and servers, with JavaScript scripts used to modify the properties and behavior of Java objects, so the range of live online applications that dynamically present information to and interact with users over enterpris…

There is a JavaScript interpreter built in to Java (or more than one, in that you could choose at least one older one at the time I tried it). I used this for a fairly complex app and found it surprisingly easy to let it parse JavaScript and affect the Java program, moving data back and forth.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#216

Post by hajile »

ethbr0 wrote: post #105
AndrewStephens wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partly marketing but the integration certainly existed. As I recall, public methods in the main applet class are exposed to JavaScript. It was a little slow and clunky but it worked. The idea was similar to how web components are used today. Your web page would contain custom applets for a fancy input field, a calendar control date picker, and whatever other controls html didn’t provide, all implemented as Applets. I…

Technically, why are / were Java applets so slow? I never dug into the ecosystem deeply enough to understand (plus a bit before my time). Was it JVM startup time, Java xfactory-begat-y-begat-z code init time, what? Also, applets run outside the browser, correct? I.e. on the browser's host system in a separate JVM process?

Java apps didn't integrate with regular HTML. They were more like Flash apps with all those downsides.

Even today JS is interpreted before compiling to bytecode because the startup latency is much lower (JIT only kicks in once the background parsing is complete). Back in those days, the extent of JS was a few click handlers or similar. The JS interpreter would be done long before the JVM was even loaded into memory.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#217

Post by Gunax »

ethbr0 wrote: post #121
krapp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Imagine if you said that the pain and suffering of every developer for the last 25 years was largely your fault. Hyperbole and nonsense. No one was "suffering" under Javascript until Node and compile-to-js languages and the Byzantine nightmare of a development environment that they created came along. No one was shouting "Javascript Delenda Est" when all you needed was an FTP account and a text editor to configure a…

> Silicon Valley's fault Personally, I'd lay this at the "copy & paste, boot camp-trained" webdevs community's feet, along with their customers. Js has an unfortunate ecosystem dynamic where its primary customers (I want to X on the web) don't understand it, so its primary developers don't have any standardization pressure (fragmentation / spaghetti at the wall), browsers are forced to enable this behavior via monkey…

Do you think it would be better if they did understand it?

You can be a Java dev for years (forever really) without understanding how the JVM works. I don't see why the web has to be any different.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#218

Post by mikro2nd »

hajile wrote: post #216
ethbr0 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, why are / were Java applets so slow? I never dug into the ecosystem deeply enough to understand (plus a bit before my time). Was it JVM startup time, Java xfactory-begat-y-begat-z code init time, what? Also, applets run outside the browser, correct? I.e. on the browser's host system in a separate JVM process?

Java apps didn't integrate with regular HTML. They were more like Flash apps with all those downsides. Even today JS is interpreted before compiling to bytecode because the startup latency is much lower (JIT only kicks in once the background parsing is complete). Back in those days, the extent of JS was a few click handlers or similar. The JS interpreter would be done long before the JVM was even loaded into memory.

Oh, but they did. The DOM API was there from about 1.3 (iirc).

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#220

Post by pjmlp »

hutzlibu wrote: post #205
alisonkisk wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sun had some great people and some good ideas and products, but as a coherent business it was a rolling train wreck.

Which why they sadly ended up digested by Oracle.

Only after Google sent a couple of torpedoes and then went as if it wasn't their business.
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