(earlier 'Java is almost universal' text from tex trimmed)
The most important part of 'Java is almost universal' is how
common is the JVM. I think it is almost alwasy pre-installed,
I think you can just about count on it. When, and if, this
changes, it would be good for all of us to know.
It is important because it means you, Jenny, and all of us can
develop applets where they make sense, and my contention
is they make sense a lot more than people realize.
Some of the reasons I think JVM is universal:
1. MS tried to quit including JVM, and there was such clamor
that MS extended its support of JVM, and most other vendors
said they would ship Sun's if MS stopped [from eWeek], and I
expect they intend to ship Sun's plug-in eventually. Maybe some
have already started.
2. All users (business folks most commonly w/ late model
IBM TP's) I've tried to show applet demos had JVM, and they
did not even know what JVM nor applets were. It just worked.
3. A Web stat w/i past year or so, said ~90% machines had
Flash player and JVM (Flash player % was slightly higher).
4. College son just bought new DELL w/ XP Media Player
and just came w/ JVM installed & ready. Applet came up
immediately.
5. Hearsay from other techs saying they see JVM on all
machines even though they don't do Java nor consiously
see applets in their day-to-day browsing.
RE: Dr. Uwe Seimet's not seeing applets anymore. I don't
see them either; however, there are a lot of things you don't
see much of on the Web and that is the inter-company stuff
that ya gotta sign on to see, and an employee of a big co may
only see the kind of stuff his co supplies. A lot of sophisticated
stuff cannot be seen. One of the co's I did some work for had
a $30,000,000 (thats millions) contract w/ Anderson to install
their internal company and B2B Web stuff. Dr. Seimet will see
none of it (nor did I). I am not saying there are zillions of
hidden applets in B2B, but how ya gonna know? There is
certainly one.
If an applet can do a good job and JVM's are everywhere,
use one.
*Fortunately*, the rush to 'do it as an applet' has fallen
to the logic that 'if it can be done in a web page - use
a web page'. That is a principle I strongly advocate.
I've heard that from everyone, too, and for quite a while I
kinda believed it. Like its general knowledge. As I think about
it more, and see JVM's everywhere, I belive this thinking has
caused a great deal of harm, and is wrong.
If an HTML page is better by your metic, or maybe you
worry about a visitor w/ a VGA screen running Win3.0,
by all means, but if an applet does it better, then do it w/ an applet.
Using basic stuff and designing for 1.1 seems to work very
well. I heard so much trouble w/ 1.0 that I did'nt even try to
consider Java until IE5.0 & 1.1, and then I very slowly started
looking into it.
Applet compatibility problems? Ya ever read the HTML books
with whole chapters telling me how to create stuff twice, once for
IE and again for Netscape, and even now ya see: "If you are using
AOL, then do . . .". and "If you are having problems with this
page and IE6, then download the. . ." Mindboggling compatibility
problems did not seem to stop Web developers before.
What are applets best for? This would take too long to go into
but, basically, your gray applet window is a window to the host
where you can pour data through to the user very efficiently
compared to new pages all the time. There is some talk about
the "NEW" technique used by Google maps, so that you don't
have to reload the page all the time. Jeeze! Applets have had
that ability for a long time.
I can provide a user with a much better and faster experience
getting info w/ an Applet than w/ multiple pages. With an applet
I have a canvas where I can show anything I can dream up.
I don't like the Web b/c looking for product info is soooo time
consuming. Yes, a huge amout could be done w/ better design,
but an applet is a very, very powerful tool to get information from
the host to the user. [Also, I'd rather slowly use the Web than
visit a rep and use the ph to get paper literature. Still, the Web
is WAY too much like, well pages, rather than an inteligent
agent helping me find info].
Consider our local Jr college. 5-10,000 students, and at registration
time, Web access nearly stops as many stu's are searching for classes,
registering, paying, etc. as the server builds 1000s of Web pages in
response to user clicks. We're talking about 30min & more wait
times for a page. All classes on all campuses could be packed into
a (relatively) small download and searching w/b instanteneous. Yes,
ya gotta go back to host for updates as classes fill, but with just a
few bytes going back & forth, the server would'nt even sweat
w/ thousands of on-line stu's. A stu's full account info and transcripts
are just a small amout of info when packed, but its no small deal
when 1000's of pages are assembled in the host and sent w/ just
some of the info on each of dozens of pages. If each stu logs on
and got an applet (few 100k), and all further work is done w/
packed data, and presentation assembly done on the client where
we have 100's of millions of instructions/sec to use, it could be
nearly pleasant for the stu.
I have also considered ways to entice user into loading new JVM,
but this is too long already.
The site loses the business, never hears from the
potential client again, and has no idea what they
missed out on.
This is key. Does your targets have JVM? I think overwhelmingly
user have it. It is important to know this info and when and if it is
changing.
Just as an aside. Unfortunately, few applet devlopers have
that level of savvy. You up for writing a tutorial?
I would consider that. Don't know what forum is appropriate nor when
I could do it right.
Thanks. Running a little behind, partly b/c all programming seems to and
b/c it is difficult for user's to express rules, especially, those they do
in their
head.
Also, I would be interested in looking over some of your
applet implementations (the web pages themselves).
Do you use HTMLConverter? The applet element? JWS? ..what?
Right now I don't have any to show to public as they are private to the
business and I would not like to show my demo's and attract others to my
potential clients. At some point I would be happy to, perhaps as part of
the tutorial.
Excuse my ignorance, but I don't know what an HTM Converter nor
applet element are. I use the "<applet" tag if that has bearing. I assume
JWS is Webstart, & I don't use it b/c it is not 1.1.
--tex
