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by moondowner 4803 days ago
I agree. All the bad rep Java gets is from the Applet 0-day hacks.

Java 8 to deprecate the Browser Plugin, Applets and all related stuff to it, and for those who need this technology can use Java 7 and other previous releases.
2 comments
mdmarra 4803 days ago
Then you're going to have all kind of apps stuck on older Java versions forever. While I'd love to see it happen, it would be Oracle shooting themselves in the foot with their enterprise customers, which - let's face it - is who they actually care about.
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bradleyjg 4803 days ago
Although I don't have numbers, I'm not aware of very many enterprises with extensive fleets of java applets. Java in the enterprise tends to be either stand alone programs (i.e. Swing), or EJB driven middleware with JSP on the front end.
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smackay 4803 days ago
Big chunks of dealing with the government (taxes, etc.) in Portugal are in the form of Java applets. I think this is repeated across Europe.

Most of the apps are little more than forms - there's a lot of logic in the way the different fields are filled out and the validation and business logic is probably quite complex. Since everything must be checked on the server anyway there's nothing stopping it from being migrated to pure HTML.

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iso8859-1 4803 days ago
There is nothing stopping any web app from not using applets.
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mdmarra 4802 days ago
As an example, Sungard HE's Banner (built on Oracle) is used extensively as the ERP system at many universities in the United States. It is used for billing, payroll, recruitment, grades, student and employee contact data, etc. It is non-functional without the Java browser plugin.

Is there a reason that Sungard HE can't handle the browser portion using JS or similar instead of JPI? No. But it would be a very slow migration process and, basically, all employees at many major universities would be stuck with older Java versions.

This is just one example that I'm (unfortunately) intimately familiar with. I'm sure there are many others that the typical HN crowd (small shops, latest technology, devops, etc) would never see.

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rubinelli 4803 days ago
> Then you're going to have all kind of apps stuck on older Java versions forever.

Actually, that's already the reality of the Java ecosystem. Many libraries are tested to offer compatibility with 1.4, or even 1.3, and several flagship open source projects are not compatible yet with 1.7. With closed source and internally developed systems, the situation is even worse.

If I decide to use lambdas, I'll probably use Jython or Scala. I honestly don't expect to use Java 8 in the next 5 years.

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moondowner 4803 days ago
They can use Java 7. Oracle can provide security updates for it. And all those enterprise customers can use that one. It's not a problem to have multiple JVMs installed.

The point is, if a Java developer starts working on a new product/project, it is very likely that he won't use Applets.

And one more thing, I know companies, that use Java based tools/apps, where they are not moving from Java 5 or 6. It's too expensive (installing newer JVMs, testing the environment and everything...) and they don't feel the need to do that.

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notimetorelax 4803 days ago
We decided to switch to Java 7 simply because Java 6 has reach its end of life. There will be no more security patches for it (IIRC). I think Oracle still offers paid support for the older versions, but I don't know how much it is.
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iso8859-1 4803 days ago
You are right, the final update was 3 days ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_version_history#cite_ref-6...
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jlgreco 4803 days ago
Why should Oracle really care if a bunch of enterprise customers have old JREs installed on their desktops? That would be a problem for those enterprise customers for sure, but how would that actually be bad for Oracle?
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iSnow 4803 days ago
The enterprise is where Oracle make their money. They could care less about enthusiasts (as if there were any of their technology) and they don't really care for startups and small shops.

Their main target is huge enterprise customers where Applets are still used today.

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jlgreco 4803 days ago
Just because enterprise customers are keeping old versions around on their desktops to run applets doesn't mean that they aren't using newer versions on their servers, or even also on those same desktops.

I'm really not seeing why they should care.

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brokenparser 4803 days ago
That's a bit harsh. Just offer it as a separate download or don't include it in a default install.
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