Re:The decline and fall of Java on the desktop
by dreamcompiler on Thursday March 03, 2022 @01:18AM
(#30537793)
Google Maps was the first widespread use of Ajax outside Microsoft, and its near-realtime interactivity blew people away. Prior to that, few developers believed this level of interactivity was possible. After Google Maps, everybody learned Ajax and a thousand interactive flowers bloomed.
Re:The decline and fall of Java on the desktop
by shannah78 on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @03:21PM
(#30532528)
That sounds about right to me. AJAX - or more broadly, what we call HTML5 could have been the gamechanger.
Re:The decline and fall of Java on the desktop
by jaywalk on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @03:59PM
(#30533063)
With the entire concept of AJAX, ironically enough, being developed by Microsoft to power Outlook Web Access.
Re:The decline and fall of Java on the desktop
by thrower123 on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @07:52PM
(#30535675)
My recollection is that nobody really had wifi or cable internet before about 2005.
Webapps over dialup was a complete non-starter, so you had to have desktop apps.
Before 2004, there was a much wider perception that web applications were fundamentally limited by their latency, and if you wanted a really rich, interactive user experience, like Winamp or Outlook, you had to make a desktop application.
Then Gmail launched in 2004 and Google Maps launched in 2005. At that point, if you wanted to make a web-enabled experience with a high-quality user interface, it became more and more clear that you should build the client side in HTML + JavaScript and the server side in whatever you wanted, possibly Java.