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Java in the Browser

jpro.one

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Re: Java in the Browser

#51

Post by kaba0 »

dhosek wrote: post #44
bmacho wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it was way better than anything before and after, but the current politics the given time killed it (which may or may not be relevant anymore).

The load times and performance for applets were all pretty dismal, and given that about half of them were a site logo with moving waves at the bottom, not so missed. That said, I have a Number Theory textbook which uses computer-assisted explorations (e.g., get lists of pythagorean triples, factor a bunch of large numbers, etc.) and the most accessible version of those was through a set of applets which are challengi…

> The load times and performance for applets were all pretty dismal

Javascript was abysmally slow as well, but then it got some insane amount of man-hours spent on it. Also, with that internet speed, everything was slow - I don’t see why would that be a valid criticism against java, especially that Java byte code is insanely compact, much more so than minified js.

I think it was just ahead of its time, and Java itself could have easily been used as the web-native language if it is made to interact with the DOM natively.

Re: Java in the Browser

#52

Post by solarkraft »

StevePerkins wrote: post #17

I don't know if the performance is terrible in general, or if the demo site is getting crushed by HN traffic at the moment. If it's the former, then this is completely useless. If the latter, then I suppose it COULD have some use cases for internal tools and dashboards, in small to mid line-of-business shops that don't have many front-end developers on staff (i.e. basically a competitor to .NET's Blazor). The REALLY…

That's actually an interesting way to encourage efficient resource usage.

Re: Java in the Browser

#53

Post by digitallyfree »

ihaveajob wrote: post #32
TacticalCoder wrote: post #16

Anyone remember that Java applet in the nineties where there was some 2D wireframe "animal" moving in a rectangle and there was, IIRC, a tiny circle at each joint and you grab it and move it and it'd move the thing around / distort it. It was the first "serious" Java in the Browser I remember. It was all black & white. Maybe some HNer (not an HNer back then obviously) wrote it back in the days?

Back in college I had an assignment to build some kind of CRM-like system, and the professor made a point that we used Java applets, because that was the future ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_once,_run_anywhere was all the rage). I proposed instead learning PHP and using it for that purpose, but was laughed out of the room. Developing this was a PITA and I feel vindicated that applets faded away soon after, an…

Honestly with all the Electron-based desktop apps out there people are still thinking that way. Just with a different language and framework.

Re: Java in the Browser

#54

Post by slowmotiony »

manholio wrote: post #20

Now someone please compile a real JRE into WASM and do it right, so I can revive applets with a simple embed. There are loads of old applets that have huge historic and technical value which are becoming harder and harder to use. Example: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/rocket/ienzl.html

We still use Java applets at work. For example the IBM Host On Demand is used by the cobol/mainframe folks in a lot of banks and other financial institutions. I hate it so much.

Re: Java in the Browser

#55

Post by voidwtf »

solarkraft wrote: post #52
StevePerkins wrote: post #17

I don't know if the performance is terrible in general, or if the demo site is getting crushed by HN traffic at the moment. If it's the former, then this is completely useless. If the latter, then I suppose it COULD have some use cases for internal tools and dashboards, in small to mid line-of-business shops that don't have many front-end developers on staff (i.e. basically a competitor to .NET's Blazor). The REALLY…

That's actually an interesting way to encourage efficient resource usage.

Efficient resource usage or Java. You can only choose one :p

Re: Java in the Browser

#57

Post by dixie_land »

StevePerkins wrote: post #17

I don't know if the performance is terrible in general, or if the demo site is getting crushed by HN traffic at the moment. If it's the former, then this is completely useless. If the latter, then I suppose it COULD have some use cases for internal tools and dashboards, in small to mid line-of-business shops that don't have many front-end developers on staff (i.e. basically a competitor to .NET's Blazor). The REALLY…

maybe that's the selling point? I opened up one demo and despite it is indeed running the browser, it definitely _feels_ like running an AWT widget in ActiveX! oh the memories!

Re: Java in the Browser

#58

Post by pestatije »

TeaVMFan wrote: post #37

Actual Java in the browser (working, fast, passes Lighthouse) with TeaVM: https://blogs.oracle.com/javamagazine/post/java-in-the-brows... For example, try this 5-letter word game: https://frequal.com/wordii/

See also: Migrating Browser-Based Java Applets to IcedTea-Web Using JNLP

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32565828

Re: Java in the Browser

#59

Post by pjmlp »

kaba0 wrote: post #50
pjmlp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java solutions for JS and WebAssembly as targets are older than Blazor actually, see TeaVM and CheerpJ, and then there was GWT alongside Vaadin.

You left out probably the most widely used one, Google’s j2cl compiler (java->js), which is used quite extensively in many google products for shared business logic. It is the spiritual inheritor of GWT.

Ah, wasn't aware of it.
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