Good grief.

If one goes back and reads my original post, it's acknowledged quite clearly that Java Applets still enjoy *niche* usage for banking and internal-usage business tools but as far as the web in general is concerned, Java Applets are vastly outnumbered by embedded Flash.

I appreciate that you're trying to win an argument by disingenuous pedantry and taking isolated phrases out of context, but the meaning is quite clear to anyone who isn't trying to use it solely as an attempt at point-scoring.

Very good point; one whose importance I should perhaps have been more aware of (I didn't have a PC nor access to a PC nor the Internet circa 1995 to 98, so perhaps my lack of firsthand experience at the time this was unfolding blinded me to this factor).

Shame this wasn't posted earlier on when the discussion was still relatively new and prominent, but it's a post I'll happily reference the next time this comes up.

Yes; it's easy to forget what a bunch of cynical, destructive *****s MS were- and still are, given the chance. Oh wait... no, it's not.

Unfortunately, Java is now in the hands of a company that makes MS look.... well, okay, I'm not sure they make MS look good, but Oracle's motto should be "We like being evil, and we're not bothered what you think". :-/

I know a lot of people seem to prefer Sheridan, and that Boxleitner was JMS's original choice, but I actually preferred O'Hare's Sinclair and was sorry to see him go.

Nothing I said contradicts that. Quite the opposite; I'd say that *was* pretty much the sort of niche use acknowledged in my original post:-

But the main point- already expressed- was that

In terms of pure numbers, there were (and still are, even now) vastly more embedded Flash apps and programs on web pages in general than there ever were Java Applets.

Incidentally, the fact that you mentioned it requires the superseded Java 6 would seem to back up my suspicion expressed elsewhere that many such apps are essentially legacy products.

I live in Scotland, and I can tell you now that your chosen example isn't representative of what people use here. (*) (**) They strike me as one of those niche providers that do well from people willing to pay a bit more for its services, but most people here (as with the rest of the UK) are with Virgin, BT, Sky, Plusnet et al, who are generally much cheaper. (**)

The first three of those generally give their cheapest prices via bundled deals (e.g. phone/broadband or phone/TV/broadband), so it's hard to give an actual price. However, I can guarantee you that the majority of people here are not paying anything like £30 to £40 per month for Internet alone.

Not that I'm saying BT etc. are great in many respects, but that's not what was being discussed.

Despite the "highlander in an isolated bothy" cliche I suspect many foreigners have when they think of Scottish life, the majority of people here live in major cities in the central and eastern lowland areas, with the same access to facilities as most large towns and cities in England. Of course, those highland areas do exist, and people live there- and have more issues with connectivity- but they're a relatively small percentage of the population.

(*) I suspect that you did a search on (e.g.) Scotland ISP, and took the first result that came up as your example.

(**) You'll note that "Scotnet is now the largest Scottish Broadband provider" as claimed on their "About Us" page is *not* the same as saying they're the largest provider of broadband in Scotland. Far from it!

(***) ADSL prices do generally require an additional (phone) "line rental" charge which can add on significantly, but that's used for other things too. (Virgin Media cable Internet doesn't require a traditional phone line).

AFAICT the last time my Windows installation was infected it was via Java. Currently I don't have it installed, and haven't missed it.

I suspect that the majority of remaining client-side Java apps around today have legacy origins.

As I acknowledged, Flash *is* quite clearly on the way out now- something that probably started with Apple not supporting it on the iPhone, and isn't helped by issues with other smartphones and low-powered tablets.

Combined with the fact that JavaScript, HTML and the infrastructure supporting both is far more mature than it was 15 years ago, ditching Flash is now quite doable.

So what you say *is* true nowadays, but it wasn't always the case.

Maybe so, but it *was* specifically client-side web-based Applets I was talking about.

How often do you see Java browser applets used anyway? Not that much, because they never really took off in the first place (despite being by far the most hyped aspect of Java when it first came out in the mid-90s).

Yeah, you do see them used sometimes for banking applications, custom internal-use corporate tools and the like, but for general use Java Applets were massively outnumbered by Flash apps.

In fact, I'd say that Flash on web pages ended up almost entirely fulfilling the general-purpose embedded code role that Java Applets were originally meant- but failed- to fill.

The problem was that Java was just too heavyweight and slow for computers of the time, whereas Flash was more lightweight- having started out as little more than an interactive animation creator- its increasing capabilities better matching slowly-improving computer power.

I wouldn't say that Flash stole that market from Java, because the latter had already had a run at it (during the mid-to-late 90s) and failed to take off by the time that Flash started growing up around the turn of the millennium.

Obviously it's in decline now, but Flash had at least ten- and probably closer to fifteen- years at the top, whereas Java Applets never took off in the first place.

It's worse than that; the MiniDisc came out long before the MP3 *was* established as the standard. (*) As I commented a while back, had Sony used the underlying technology of MiniDisc to its full potential and enabled the free exchange of "tracks"- in effect, ATRAC files (**)- when it came out in 1992, those may well have become the preferred format for exchanging music when the file format moved beyond the original devices.

Instead, Sony not only didn't permit that, but they intentionally hobbled MiniDisc, rendering it little more than a next-generation cassette. Both in hardware and in software terms.

It was only years *after* that, *after* MP3 had taken off that they were fighting a standard *they* had let become established, and *then* they tried to force ATRAC as a file format down people's throats, years too late. But I'm repeating what I said in the original linked comment- click the link above for more on that...

(*) MP3 came out circa 1992 as well, as part of the MPEG-1 standard, but it wasn't for a number of years that it started to get used in its own right- around the time the Internet started taking off beyond academic circles- and it wasn't until the late-90s that it *really* took off. ATRAC could have pre-empted that.

(**) I say "tracks", because in 1992 the home and portable audio markets still had little to do with (personal) computers, which weren't really powerful enough to process MP3s and the like then anyway. And it has to be remembered that the *general* public were nowhere near as comfortable with computers and computer concepts than they are today. So the ability to exchange "files" would have meant little to them, but the ability to share "tracks" or "songs" between MiniDisc devices would be something they could relate to.... even if such "tracks" *were* effectively just files!

People are entitled to "tell" them what they like. (*) They don't have to like, nor follow that advice, but the OP is perfectly entitled to free speech on the matter- that doesn't infringe upon their right of ownership as you seem to think it does.

They're free to do what they want with their intellectual property, but they're not exempt from having people be able to say that what they're doing with it is stupid. Your implication appears to be a not-so-distant relative of the ever-popular "If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it, so you have no right to criticise it" fallacy.

No, I think Lionsgate would be entitled to tell him what they liked, and he'd be entitled to ignore their advice and tell them to p**s off if he so wished.

(*) Not, realistically, that they're likely to even notice- let alone care- about what a random person on a geek website is advising them, but that's beside the point here.

He didn't actually claim that they would. Quite likely he meant that it could well have been one of those cases where an early version of the movie was heavily reworked before release (including being re-edited, having scenes dropped or reshot and/or entirely new ones added) for various reasons.

Why not? For the purposes of the argument being made with respect to the UK market, they were both in the same boat.

Besides which, there were two versions of the Spectrum when originally released; the aforementioned 16K model, and an otherwise identical 48K model. The 16K spec was rendered increasingly irrelevant as time went on and the 48K version became the de facto "base model" required for Spectrum games.

Still wasn't as good a machine overall as the C64 (BASIC and faster CPU aside), but that's neither here nor there.

Assuming a company's only aim is to make money, then whatever happens to their products after they die is essentially irrelevant in that respect. (*)

Of course, I'm sure that there are those working within a company (more likely to be in engineering and development) that feel otherwise. But ultimately this will be overridden by those in sales, marketing et al, unless it offers a clear benefit to the company.

Yes, some companies will offer well-backed guarantees or promises about what happens with respect to various things should they go under (e.g. release of source code). But even that is ultimately a means to attract more paying customers- by providing a level of certainty that is valuable to them- while the company is still in existence.

(*) Unless, of course, those in power have a conflict of interest and something to gain from the company's demise.

Which would significantly reduce the appeal of the "new language" and probably result in people continuing to use the old version- with masses of support, extensions, accumulated wisdom, and software already built on it- probably forking it at some point if the current owners tried to force the change through.

Let's be honest; VB.Net was a good example of one that *didn't* succeed. It was very different to VB6, effectively a whole new environment and tech tied together with a similarly-syntaxed language, and it never achieved the popularity of its predecessor.

Yes, MS may have forced many to move to .Net by making clear that VB6 and its related infrastructure was obsolescent, but that translated to C# use, not VB. Presumably people either remained with VB6 and those who used .Net were either newcomers who had no need of a legacy language (*) or VB6 users who decided that C# was a more sensible choice (since it was clearly MS's favoured language for .Net, and wasn't hobbled by syntax that was effectively a comfort-blanket holdover from 8-bit home computer BASICs).

(*) I'm guessing that classic VB gained its userbase from the generation (and group) who started with "old school" 8-bit BASICs, and found its syntax accessible, then were able to grow while their "BASIC" grew in capability. Thing is, if you didn't start or grow with VB, then what it became is no simpler or easier to learn than C-influenced syntax like C# (and I'm speaking as someone who *did* use old-school BASIC as my first language, but not VB, and I'd much rather use a C-style language).

No idea what happened there, sorry; suspect I copied my work to a second window for replying then accidentally submitted the first as well.

Yeah, but unfortunately it's *way* to late in the day to avoid having to retain (and, ironically, formalise) the ad-hoc mess without breaking countless existing programs.

The most notorious example being one of the simplest, but also the most obviously naff; the fact that the ternary "?:" operator has incorrect precedence in PHP (compared to every other C-derived-syntax language). This quite obviously *was* a fsck-up early on (IIRC they said as much), but will always have to be kept in, an unwelcome reminder of PHP's amateur, ad-hoc origins that'll look bad to anyone learning the language, regardless of how well it improves in other areas.