Yea, it's interesting we kind of dumped Applets because they were a massive pain and now JS is trying to turn into the bytecode of the browser. Let's hope it works out better this time.

IMHO, the "massive pain" was that applets were a literal black box. There wasn't a proper DOM API back then, so Sun were forced to do it like that to get something that worked in every browser.

Java and Flash are being dropped because they are proprietary and have a single maintainer, in both cases companies which shirk their support duties. JavaScript is open and has multiple implementors who are all - even Microsoft - aggressively improving performance, features, and security.

How is Java proprietary anymore? OpenJDK is the official Java now! Java has a specification and popular technology like JavaEE has multiple open-source implementations, unlike JavaScript where you have only two.

tck test suite isn't release for apache. the only official oopen source is OpenJDK. Any spec to the language is run through a consortium of companies but is rigged heavily in Oracle's favor. The whole drama and fall out of Apache Harmony (?) sort show this. Plus Sun microsystem promise Apache the TCK test but never delivered. So sun and oracle rule Java with an iron fist.

How many people actually run a different JVM, though? Market share is really unbalanced, which is unhealthy but due to the stranglehold on official compatibility certification which is the hallmark of a one vendor world.