Re:Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
by flukus on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:01AM
(#12477512)
Web start has to be one of the best web technologies that almost no one ever heard of. It had most of the benefits of the web for LOB apps, and most consumer apps are probably better off not being web based in the first place.
Re:Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
by meshko on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:06AM
(#12477529)
Right, that too. For example, the amount of work that every serious web app puts into implementing some kind of hierarchical system for storing, naming and accessing objects and then allowing users to share them with each other is astonishing. If only there was a way to have the operating system provide some kind of similar abstraction to the users!
Re:Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
by meshko on Monday September 12, 2016 @01:53AM
(#12477482)
Sure, as said in other threads here -- large companies full of brilliant people can build good RIAs. Small companies full of OK people are suffering.
Java Applets security could have been solved. I'm not even sure what problem you are referring to exactly. With todays web we get insanity of XSSs, CSRF and who knows what else. The only reason these are not killing modern web development is because this hydra has too many heads.
Re:Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
by nixos on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:01AM
(#12477507)
>XSSs, CSRF
Java had drive-by malware downloads galore. Unfortunately, Javascript isn't immune from this, probably for the same reason: to increase performance requirements, they both JIT code, which allows potential buffer overflows, etc.
Re:Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
by rer on Wednesday September 14, 2016 @11:23AM
(#12497848)
This doesn't sound like the full explanation about the security problems of Java applets. It sounds more like a JIT bug. One can fix the JIT to check for out of bounds errors.
What's the real reason Java applets were insecure?
Re:Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
by edejong on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:07AM
(#12477536)
No, the security came much later, by then the ship was already abandoned. Also, in many ways, the security of Java Applets was actually better than ActionScript. For example, it could actually contain security contexts within one Applet. In ActionScript, every line of code had access to everything, which is a huge engineering flaw. Exception to this are web workers, but their usability is very low.
Re:Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
by rjsw on Monday September 12, 2016 @07:42AM
(#12478844)
Java could have been made to have good DOM bindings, I don't remember anyone asking for them.
Re:Ask HN: Is web programming a series of hacks on hacks?
by goatlover on Monday September 12, 2016 @12:25PM
(#12481056)
Sun wanted Netscape to put Java in the browser, but Netscape was already planning on making their own scripting language. Had Sun convinced Netscape otherwise, Java would have had good DOM bindings.
I mean, it could. But it was terribly hackish and anyways involved Javascript.
So you had one of two options:
1. Write an HTML webpage or
2. Write an empty webpage with a large Java applet in the center, which would be function as a "virtual terminal".
Both are ugly. That's why Sun created Java Web Start (IIRC), for complicated Java applications which could be loaded from the Internet.
Perhaps Google Docs could have done something like that, but I like the current UI more than the "potential Java Google Docs". The only thing Google Docs now can't do is Cntrl-S or something like that.
Also, don't forget the real reason (existing) Java Applets died - security.