[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.