[helsinkiandrew]

If only the conversations between Sun and Netscape had gone a little differently back in the day, and we'd had a single language/system in the browser – 'java' integrated with HTML and decent JVM sandbox shipped in every browser. Things would have looked very different today.

I think better, perhaps a few less web frameworks and paradigms atleast.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070916144913/http://wp.netscap...

[jasode]

>If only the conversations between Sun and Netscape had gone a little differently back in the day, and we'd had a single language/system in the browser

Brendan Eich said there were discussions with Sun (e.g. Bill Joy) and Marc Andreessen and all agreed[1] there should deliberately be 2 languages instead of 1 in the Netscape browser:

(1) an "easier/simpler" scripting type of language LiveScript aka Javascript

(2) a "professional" compiled type of language like Java for more complex applications

So, it wasn't an accident, or case of NIH Not Invented Here, or corporate bickering.

What they didn't foresee in 1994 is that the non-professional Javascript would end up adding more (pro) features that it enabled it to eliminate the need for Java Applets.

[1] deep link to B.E. explanation: https://youtu.be/krB0enBeSiE?t=24m30s

[kalleboo]

The biggest problem with Java was that it sucked. Java took too long (and too much RAM) to initialize, was too slow to add features, and had too poor developer tools to become the runtime for the web.

Instead Flash took that spot! Only because Flash eventually also ended up sucking too bad (on mobile) did we get the Javascript revolution.

If Java sucked less and developed at the same pace as Flash did, but was open enough that the browsers could implement their own <applet> runtime replacements (for instance if Java was more important for the web than for the server, Google may have bought Sun instead of Oracle), we would probably live in a very different world today.

[jasode]

>Only because Flash eventually also ended up sucking too bad (on mobile) did we get the Javascript revolution.

If "mobile" means the Apple iPhone release in 2007 not supporting Flash, I disagree.

The Javascript revolution for serious apps was arguably started by ~2000 Microsoft's XMLHttpRequest() api which other other browsers like Netscape immediately copied. This started the AJAX dynamic web page era ~7 years before 2007. When retrieving new data for a webpage is no longer tied to a user refreshing with F5 key or a HTML form submit() button, it enables a more desktop-like paradigm of apps such as:

- 2000 MS Outlook for Web

- 2004 Google Maps, Google GMail

- 2005/2006 Google Docs & Google Sheets (acquisitions)

These were the type of groundbreaking Javascript apps that convinced many that the often-dismissed "toy language" was viable for complex work. The later innovations such as 2009 Node.js runtime on the server side and 2008 V8 performance optimized js engine in Chrome just further cemented Javascript's domination. The Javascript mindshare momentum was already unstoppable long before Steve Job's declared that Flash sucked.

[DonHopkins]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25304202

Reminds me of one of Microsoft's first Dynamic HTML demos:

There were two buttons, one labeled "Our Web Site", the other labeled "Our Competitor's Web Site".

When you moved the mouse over the "Our Competitor's Web Site" button, it would quickly slide out from under your cursor before you could click it!

Then when you stopped moving your mouse, the "Our Web Site" button would slyly slide right underneath your mouse!

Dammit Microsoft!!! ;)

[agumonkey]

flash was adressing another side of that coin, presentation/appeal/multimedia

ajax was big but at best it meant slightly more dynamic business application, flash made only videos and freeform graphics ubiquitous (for better or worse)

[ungzd]

Multimedia died in late 90s. No one no longer wanted to read text in tiny unscrollable unsearchable rectangle with "real book-like" page flipping animation and colorful textured background. All these things looked garish and vulgar long before "web 2.0" and mass javascriptization.

Flash was only good for games, short animated movies and tolerable for videos and audio (before web video standards).

[anthk]

Eh, no. Bullshit. Computer encyclopedias like Encarta were huge back in the day.

If any, multimedia was HUGE in late 90's. You would have a CD-ROM for ANY content, hobby or knowledge branch.

And OFC things like Shockwave (and previously, Director) made them ubiquitous.

[corpMaverick]

From what I remember. IE was the dominant browser. And they refused to upgrade their JVM. I believe it stayed 1.1 for years. So basically, MS knee caped Java.

[BrendanEich]

It really was Marc, Bill, Rick Schell (VP Eng at Netscape) and me. No one else involved, and Rick was least involved but he came through at key junctures to preserve JS and also to keep a "third language" (a PHP like server-side thing from the LiveWire team) from being created on the sly/on the cheap.

[mettamage]

In many cases user or players (video games) involvement is really tough to predict. IMO, the best people for that are game-designers and their method is to play test. In other words, we can't predict how users react to particular technologies.

[agumonkey]

The two programming languages could still have been orthogonal to the presentation layer. Java with Dom or Livescript with Dom. I guess it was impossible to foresee dom/css being sufficient for complex applications though.

[DonHopkins]

>So, it wasn't an accident, or case of NIH Not Invented Here, or corporate bickering.

Maybe that's what Brendan Eich claimed at some point in time, but it certainly devolved into corporate bickering pretty quickly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19837817

>Wow, a blast from the past! 1996, what a year that was. [...]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19846280

[More links and excerpts at the link above, but here is the timeline summary:]

>Ha ha! Yes, the launch of Javagator was a lot like watching the Space Shuttle Challenger blow up.

>Such glorious plans they had, then Sun and Netscape started bickering about who was going to be on top...

>But Rhino, Mozilla and Phoenix eventually rose from the ashes of the Javagator Disaster.

>December 30, 1997: Netscape sharpens Javagator plans [...]

>February 26, 1998: Netscape's Java browser in doubt [...]

>February 26, 1998: Whither Crawls Netscape's Javagator? [...]

>April 3, 1998: Will Javagator be reborn as Jazilla? [...]

>Fortunately, Netscape's Java Rhino JavaScript engine managed to make it out into the world: [...]

>Javascript Jabber: 124 JSJ The Origin of Javascript with Brendan Eich [...]

>Brendan Eich:

>And Netscape had acquired a company called Digital Styles that was known for rendering engines of some kind. And they started doing a next-generation engine in ’97 I think based on Java. And they thought, Netscape’s doing the Javagator, Netscape and Sun are going to kill Windows, Java’s going to be the future on the client side. Let’s build a Java engine. When Java got the plug pulled from it in late ’97, when the Electrical Fire JVM that Waldemar Horwat was building at Netscape got cancelled, when Sun went away because Netscape was basically going out of business slowly, the team that was doing this Java engine, this Java web engine, rendering engine called Raptor said, “Oh, we better rewrite it in,” maybe it was called Xena, I forget. They said, “We better rewrite it in C++.” And then they said, “Let’s sell it to Mozilla.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16354069

>[...] MSFT was even afraid of AOL, Oracle, and others teaming up to offer a home appliance (eg. a net PC) at low prices and undercutting the PC industry. Of course, those partnerships and alliances never did work out. Sun and Netscape hated each other, for example. [...]

Ain't that the truth! The bitter irony is that a bunch of the Sun-hating Netscape programmers went over to AOL after the acquisition, just to be mis-managed into the ground by a bunch of "Alliance" managers from Sun.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aol-woos-netscape-employees/

>Case told the Netscape workers that after the merger is completed next spring, stock options will remain valuable, their sabbatical program will remain in place, and their corporate culture will remain intact.

>"Maybe you joined the company because it was a cool company," he said. "We are not changing any of that. We want to run this as an independent culture."

Pffff!!!

http://www.zdnet.com/article/a-year-ago-friction-behind-aol-...

>Netscape cancelled a project to develop a Java version of Netscape Navigator with Sun Microsystems Inc. because Netscape couldn't afford it, according to Kannegaard. Kannegaard's claims are at odds with the story Netscape told publicly about the reason it killed its so-called Javagator product. "It was explained to me that after Microsoft in their [Netscape's] words undercut their business, they could not afford to continue the project, so they had to reduce their engineering resources and cancel this project," Kannegaard said.

>That is not the story Netscape told the general public. According to a story in ZD Net's sister publication, PCWeek published Feb. 26, 1998, Netscape said it was pulling back on Javagator in hopes of getting help from Network Computer manufacturers such as Sun and Oracle Corp.

Meow!!!

https://www.cnet.com/news/aol-layoffs-slam-sun-netscape-alli...

>After the layoffs, iPlanet will largely be a Sun satellite. As of last July, only one-third of iPlanet's approximately 3,000 employees were from AOL, Sun Chief Financial Officer Mike Lehman said. Lehman has further said that Sun largely owns iPlanet's intellectual property.

Owch.

[donatj]

Rose tinted glasses I suspect. Don’t forget in the 90s the average desktop wasn’t powerful enough to run Java at a decent speed and the JVM startup time was in the tens of seconds.

It’s never told as such, but having been around at the time I suspect JS came to be largely from Java’s lackluster performance.

I’d go so far as to say if the web had depended on client side Java it may never have taken off.

[commandlinefan]

> Java’s lackluster performance

It also had to do with Java's availability being hit or miss - a lot of times, you'd have to jump through some hoops to enable Java support, whereas Javascript always worked.

[abraxas]

JS before V8 was painfully slow. But yeah the startup times of Applets were an issue on a whole another level. I'm glad we have WASM now so maybe powerful and clean languages for coding web UI will be in our future.

[raverbashing]

> and decent JVM sandbox shipped in every browser

Javascript deserves a lot of criticism but one thing it did right from the start was being lightweight enough for a browser

Java seems like it "weighed a ton" since its inception

[helsinkiandrew]

The JVM or the libraries? - I guess both are large.

But the advantage of browsers shipping with all or parts of a standard Java library would be that most webapps wouldn't need to ship a huge number of node dependencies, fewer leftpad Node debarcles and reinvention of the wheel.

[arethuza]

I don't remember the earlies versions of Java (back in 1995 or so) being that heavyweight. It did rapidly acquire baggage though.

[kalleboo]

I remember in 1996 whenever you hit a page with a Java applet, the initial JVM initialization froze my browser for 30 seconds while the hard disk thrashed away. Maybe out home machine didn't have enough RAM.

[arethuza]

I guess when I first used Java in early '95 the browser was written in Java (HotJava) so it didn't have that problem.

[shams93]

Applets were a powerful tool in 1997, I was doing stuff you need to use webrtc for with just applets back then, even used applets for my MFA, unfortunately since I was doing this in art school employers refused to hire me to do java for pay, things were very skewed back then when everybody demanded that bscs.

[afiori]

Potentially it would have made multiple browser implementation illegal (as in the android/java lawsuit).

Maybe technically a better platform, but almost surely not the Web we have now

[BrendanEich]

Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1894374. Java was not in embeddable shape in 1995, there was no way it could be the one true language. It was also a pain to use, frankly. MS would have romped all over it with VBScript.