Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side languages?

Re:Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side... by notquitehuman on Friday July 30, 2021 @02:49PM (#28011016)

JavaScript, as I recall, was the answer to Java being crashy and slow on 50 MHz processors. Microsoft tried to make VBscript happen, but was very Microsofty with the licensing, so JavaScript won by default. It’s been good enough to prevent people from successfully replacing it, but annoying enough that people keep trying.

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Re:Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side... by eqvinox on Friday July 30, 2021 @04:15PM (#28011906)

> JavaScript, as I recall, was the answer to Java being crashy and slow on 50 MHz processors.

[citation needed]

Having lived through that period of time, I do not recall Java applets and JavaScript ever being considered to be in the same category / trying to solve similar problems.

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Re:Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side... by aasasd on Friday July 30, 2021 @10:44PM (#28014776)

Java literally runs on smart cards, including SIM cards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Card — and did so since the 90s.

My guess is, applets were crashy for different reasons than CPU speed.

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Re:Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side... by garmaine on Friday July 30, 2021 @10:38PM (#28014735)

JavaScript was contemporaneously developed alongside Java, to target a different niche:

https://auth0.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-javascript/

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Re:Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side... by dcminter on Saturday July 31, 2021 @04:40AM (#28016478)

Java wasn't crashy as I recall it. Nor was it slow once the applet started. It was slow in the sense that downloading the class files (usually over a modem, sob) and firing up the JVM wedged your webpage for a good while!

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Re:Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side... by mileza on Friday July 30, 2021 @03:50PM (#28011672)

Historical records seem to contradict themselves on this matter. What I recall reading was that they were created for two different things: JavaScript was created to add basic interactivity on the page, and Java was intended to be used for more CPU-intensive work.

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Re:Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side... by some_chap on Saturday July 31, 2021 @06:28AM (#28016899)

> JavaScript, as I recall, was the answer to Java being crashy and slow on 50 MHz processors.

Not in the least - The early scripting language Mocha, was first renamed to LiveScript then Netscape and Sun did a license agreement and it became JavaScript. And the idea was to make it a complementary scripting language to go with Java, with the compiled language.

Purely marketing, to attempt to use the popularity of stand-alone Java for an in-browser scripting solution.

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