Sorry fro the broken post (ironically, something that NEVER happened to me with a real mail client - I'm using Google Groups' web client...)
If Java applets/JAWS (with or without JavaFX) fail, I'm afraid that the winner will be either Flash or Silverlight, not the W3C-backed web. It's probably right that many people would gladly move 80% of their apps inside a browser. But the browser is not up to the task, and I don't think it will be at least with the next batch of HTML5 gizmos. The window of opportunity is wide open for "external" RIA technologies and will be for a few years still. A+ Osvaldo On 30 nov, 16:31, opinali <[email protected]> wrote: > Unfortunately, JavaScript (plus its DOM interface with the outside > world) is a pretty poor choice for such UVM role. > > First, with its dynamic typing, prototype-based structure, it's one of > the hardest languages to optimize and even next-gen JITs like V8/TM/ > Nitro will not compete with Java (even with HotSpot Client) any time > soon (or with Silverlight's CLR, for that matter). JS apps only look > fast when they are thin layers over non-JS services like DOM, WebGL, > canvas/video/audio support, etc. or when the network is the bottleneck > (gmail, maps, etc.) so the user accepts delays as something natural. > Any app that depends on a large amount of JS code, or contains > complex, CPU-bound JS algorithms, will be a fiasco for many years to > come. In the old times we'd just say "yeah whatever, let's just wait > the next couple Moore's Law doublings of CPU speed", but these are the > new times and CPUs are not getting faster in any significant speed, so > until somebody comes up with a magic parallelization framework, > language speed will matter a lot. > > Second, JS/web apps still lacks very important features. While the > next round of progressive-rock-browsers will implement such things as > accelerated 3D, I'm still waiting for such simple delicacies as > support for custom right-button menus, drag&drop, clipboard > integration, etc. There's also the hard reality of MSIE lagging as > much as they can get away with, to support these latest enhancements, > because Microsofts agenda with Silverlight competes radically with the > pure-web RIA. Now MS is talking IE9 which should have a JIT-compiled > JS VM with decent performance, plus some HTML5 support. But this only > means that IE9, in late 2010 or 2011, will be as good as the state-of- > the-art of 2008 (at best). And many corps are still dragging their > feet with IE6; it's clear to me that pushing a plugin (that is > compatible with old IEs) is less hard than pushing the latest > browsers. > > If Java applets/JAWS (with or without JavaFX) fail, I > > On 30 nov, 10:56, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote: > > > People are no longer programming directly in JavaScript though, but > > abstractions on top a la jQuery and GWT which shields the developer > > from most of the ugliness. Google has proven time and again how they > > perceive JavaScript as nothing less than a universal machine layer > > opening the door for universal access (computers, phones, picture > > frames etc.). I think Sun missed that opportunity when NetScape made > > JavaScript the de-facto language over Java. > > > /Casper > > > On Nov 30, 1:04 pm, Simon Brocklehurst <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Nov 30, 1:27 am, Josh McDonald <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > 2) Stop with the applet. Seriously. The browser plugin war is over, > > > > Adobe > > > > won. Years ago. And before Java 7 is ready and modularised, Google will > > > > have > > > > gotten V8 and (Canvas||a replacement for Canvas) up to par. It's just > > > > more > > > > important to them than Java 7 and FX are to Sun (which is not how it > > > > should > > > > be IMO), they have more money, and they've built a nest of hackers where > > > > even @dhanji isn't (always) the smartest guy in the room. The JVM is > > > > *awesome*, but Tamarin is good enough for the browser. > > > > That's an interesting suggestion. You might be right that this war is > > > already lost. Personally, I hope not - I think JavaScript is a poor > > > choice of language for building sophisticated browser-based > > > applications. *If* it is lost, though, the consequences are serious, > > > because it will restrict every non-browser RIA platform to a pretty > > > small niche. That's because close to 100% of people have already > > > decided they want 80% of the computer systems they access via a > > > desktop computer to run inside a browser, -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
