I’m not sure that Java applets are even relevant to software development
today, but this interview (via
Ajaxian)
regarding the rewritten Java browser
plugin
caught my attention:
Java Applets Reborn from
Dion Almaer on
Vimeo.
So the most interesting things (to me):
- The plugin itself is mostly written in Java. I love these sort of
recursive language exercises (see
PyPy), if nothing else for
their turtles all the way
down
effect. But I suppose this actually makes a certain degree of sense:
if you have a fixed set of resources and you’re putting lots of them
towards improving the JVM/JRE, you can take advantage of those
improvements by writing your plugin in Java. They don’t talk about
the architecture of the old plugin much, but I wouldn’t be terribly
surprised to find out the native-code “shim” used to communicate
between the browser and the JVM is easier to maintain than the old
plugin was.
- Applets run in a completely independent process (not just thread).
- An applet can demand to run with a particular JRE version. They label
this “enterprise support.” I’d call it “sanity support.”
None of this really speaks to whether it’s too little, too late. It
seems like a good move on Sun’s part, especially given the recent
attention on rich internet applications (RIAs) has focused (not
necessarily undeservedly) on
Flash, Adobe
AIR (the vapor-ware jokes
write themselves, don’t they?) and Microsoft
Silverlight. The
amount of press and attention may indicate this is an area whose time
has come. And while I admit having a begrudging soft spot for Java, it
seems that companies (especially capital-“E” “enterprise” companies) who
already have lots of in house Java expertise could benefit from being
able to extend that knowledge down to the desktop. Maybe.
| date: | 2007-10-22 20:37:34 |
|---|
| wordpress_id: | 534 |
|---|
| layout: | post |
|---|
| slug: | sun-rewrites-java-browser-plugin |
|---|
| comments: | |
|---|
| category: | development |
|---|
| tags: | java, plugin, Software |
|---|