I think so, but that was the 90s where we needed a lot more hindsight to get it right. Plus that was mostly just Sun, right? WASM is backed by all browsers and it looks like MS might be looking at bridging it with its own kernel or something?

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bgwalter 10 months ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know. The integration of Java applets was way smoother than WASM.

Security wise, perhaps a different story, though let's wait until WASM is in wide use with filesystem access and bugs start to appear.

	▲	berkes 10 months ago \| parent [-]
		I understand why, but still lament that java applets where dropped like a hot potato, rather than solving the (fundamental) issues. Back then, I learned Java, just to have fancy menus, quirky gimmicks and such. Until flash came along, nothing could do this. Where Java was rather open, free/libre, flash was proprietary and even patented. A big step back. And it took decades before JavaScript reached parity in possibilities to create such interactive, multimedia experiences in a cross-browserish way. I can only imagine how much further along something like videoconferencing, realtime collaboration or gaming on the web would've been if this Java applet tech had been ever improving since inception. (edit: I'm all for semantic, accessible ,clean HTML/CSS/JS in my web apps. But there's lots of use cases for gimmicks, fancy visuals, immersive experiences etc. and no, that's not the hotel-reservation-form or the hackers-forum. But art. Or fun. Or ?)

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lloeki 10 months ago | parent | prev [-]

> that was the 90s

In the meantime the CLR happened too.

And - to an extent - LLVM IR.