On Wed, 18 Jul, 2001 at 17:38 +0100, Ashley T. Howes Ph.D. wrote:
Java support in client side browsers always has been dodgy.
Woah! Hold on there! Now who's spreading FUD? Yes, historically Java in browsers was a pile of pants, but that simply hasn't been true for the last year or so. IE5's implementation was pretty darn good, better than many of the more Open offerings, so it's kinda ironic that they should pull the plug on it.
Does anyone know of large projects which use java deployment and IE? Or will this just affect the small applets for games, etc?
Microsoft killing java would stop me using my online banking. It would stop me using my content management system. It would stop me reading the latest news headlines. Java's for more than games, that's just three applications off the top of my head where it's useful in the browser and used almost every day.
(As it happens, I can do all these things in Linux, but I can't always guarantee I'll be sat in front of a Linux machine.)
So .Net is a replacement for Java? Does it have similar functionality?
Not even slightly. .Net is a framework for internet applications. Java is a fully-featured environment for providing applications. .Net is only available on platforms that Microsoft provide it on (although hopefully Mono will fix this). .Net is yet another way of Microsoft embracing, extending and ultimately consuming the internet.
Grrrr, etc.
Andrew.