Summary
Java applets were small applications written in the Java programming language, or another programming language that compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Java bytecode. The user launched the Java applet from a web page, and the applet was then executed within a Java virtual machine (JVM) in a process separate from the web browser itself. A Java applet could appear in a frame of the web page, a new application window, Sun's AppletViewer, or a stand-alone tool for testing applets. Java applets were introduced in the first version of the Java language, which was released in 1995. Beginning in 2013, major web browsers began to phase out support for the underlying technology applets used to run, with applets becoming completely unable to be run by 2015–2017. Java applets were deprecated by Java 9 in 2017. Java applets were usually written in Java, but other languages such as Jython, JRuby, Pascal, Scala, NetRexx, or Eiffel (via SmartEiffel) could be used as well. Java applets run at very fast speeds and until 2011, they were many times faster than JavaScript. Unlike JavaScript, Java applets had access to 3D hardware acceleration, making them well-suited for non-trivial, computation-intensive visualizations. As browsers have gained support for hardware-accelerated graphics thanks to the canvas technology (or specifically WebGL in the case of 3D graphics), as well as just-in-time compiled JavaScript, the speed difference has become less noticeable. Since Java bytecode is cross-platform (or platform independent), Java applets could be executed by clients for many platforms, including Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, Unix, macOS and Linux. They could not be run on mobile devices, which do not support running standard Oracle JVM bytecode. Android devices can run code written in Java compiled for the Android Runtime. The applets are used to provide interactive features to web applications that cannot be provided by HTML alone. They can capture mouse input and also have controls like buttons or check boxes.
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Java (software platform)
Java is a set of computer software and specifications developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems that provides a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones to enterprise servers and supercomputers. Java applets, which are less common than standalone Java applications, were commonly run in secure, sandboxed environments to provide many features of native applications through being embedded in HTML pages.
Java (programming language)
Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmers write once, run anywhere (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need to recompile. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture.
Java virtual machine
A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes what is required in a JVM implementation. Having a specification ensures interoperability of Java programs across different implementations so that program authors using the Java Development Kit (JDK) need not worry about idiosyncrasies of the underlying hardware platform.
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