[cube00]

> banks to stop using it for online banking apps

I never understood why so many banks flocked to building their online banking in applets when it wasn't like you needed anything more advanced than HTML to view balances and make transactions.

[im3w1l]

Java did many things very right. It's a really fast language. It's memory safe. It could run anywhere. It had well-thought out namespacing at a time where namespacing was a concept most people barely knew they needed it. It had an advanced security model.

It was a very reasonable bet at the time imo.

[wiseowise]

Because they’ve hired a bunch of Java devs that don’t know anything outside of Java?

[72deluxe]

Amusingly, we see the repeat of this in "desktop" apps that are just web technologies in a browser, wasting CPU time and RAM for "ease" of development. (I don't think it's easier at all - a mess of JS callbacks makes it difficult to see the initiator of anything).

[wiseowise]

> Amusingly, we see the repeat of this in "desktop" apps that are just web technologies in a browser, wasting CPU time and RAM for "ease" of development.

Web is chosen because it is the fastest way to hit all platforms, not because it's a skill issue.

> a mess of JS callbacks makes it difficult to see the initiator of anything

Async/await is available in most browsers since 2017, what year are you from?

[72deluxe]

I think the initial idea of being the fast to hit all platforms was the idea, but this has meant a lack of skill in developers who don't know about each platform, so you end up with a mess of apps that attempt to (badly) replicate native elements like menus.

You are right about async/await. I am old! (But I still find the development of software in a large JS system unmanageable versus old C++ development approaches).

[theandrewbailey]

Java Servlets and JSPs output HTML. I've been building a blog with them for over 15 years.

[elric]

I'm getting the impression you're conveniently ignoring how piss poor HTML/AJAX/JS capabilities were back then, or even how slow internet speeds were.

Applets could do things that JS could not. Some bank applets did client side crypto with keys that were on the device. Good luck doing that in JS back then. My bank's applet could cope with connection losses so I could queue a payment while dialup did it's thing.