It's yet another plug-in that users hate,
and Java has an even worse reputation than most.

Why?

There are just so many reasons.

Microsoft and Sun.

Java is an open standard, and it's one that Microsoft originally embraced. They made their own Microsoft JVM (Java Virtual Machine) part of Internet Explorer. This led to the rapid growth of Java on the web.

Sun, Java's creator, then decided to sue Microsoft, for being anti-competitive in bundling the Microsoft JVM with the world's most popular web browser. This was a bad move - Sun wanted Microsoft to bundle its JVM instead, but it actually led to Microsoft simply removing all Java support from Internet Explorer, and forcing users to go and download Sun's (from www.java.com) if they wanted to see Java content.

That leaves us in the situation we're in today,
where users can be divided into three groups:

Users with old versions of Internet Explorer. They have the Microsoft JVM, which is wildly incompatible with Sun's.

Users with new versions of Internet Explorer but no JVM. They don't have a JVM, meaning that you'll have to get them to download Sun's to see Java content - and Sun's JVM is a big download.

Users with Sun's JVM. They're not only the smallest group, but they're also using a JVM that is incompatible with Microsoft's.

This leads to a situation where you can either code for the smallest group of users (who have a supported plug-in), or the next largest one (who have an unsupported one), or try to force the largest group (who have no plugin) to get one. This is obviously an extremely bad situation to find yourself in.

The Speed Problem.

Java's problems, though, don't end there. Even assuming that your user has one JVM or the other, they still won't want to use Java content. The big reason for this is that Java is very, very slow.

How slow? It's slow to the point where going to any page that has Java on it will cause most browsers to freeze up for about 30 seconds or so, appearing to have crashed completely. Users are unlikely to be patient enough to wait for the Java to load, instead press control, alt and delete to get out of there.

Java's adherents mostly refuse to acknowledge the speed problem, but it's bad enough that downloadable desktop programs written in Java have become a complete joke - anything useful written in Java will be pretty promptly re-written in someone else to make a more responsive and usable version. Java programs are simply impractical thanks to their speed problems, and no matter how fast computers get it doesn't seem to get any better.

The Looks Problem.

The next problem is the way Java tends to look. It uses non-standard buttons, not to mention rather simple and overly programmatical ways of producing graphics. To put it less kindly, content produced with Java tends to be ugly.

If you try producing the same application in Java and in Flash, there's just no comparison. The Flash version might be a little harder to code, but it will work in so many more browsers, load much faster, and look better when it does. You would be very silly at this point to use Java instead of Flash, and there are very few things that Java applets can do but Flash can't.

Java on the Server.

At this point, Java is pretty much dead on the desktop, or in the web browser.

For this reason, if you're going to write programs in Java, you should keep them where they belong and work best - on the server. Java on the server is growing all the time, and is a good alternative to many other ways of doing things, providing your server is powerful enough for it.

Sun knows this, and is re-focusing its Java efforts at server installations, as an alternative to Microsoft's .Net.

Let's leave client-side Java to rest in peace.

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2. How the Web Works
3. Registering a Domain Name
4. The Confusing World of Web Hosting - Making Your Decision
5. How to Set Up Your Hosting in 5 Minutes Flat
6. Websites and Web logs - What's the Difference?
7. What Do You Want Your Website to Do?
8. Hiring Professionals - 5 Things to Look For
9. Working With Templates
10. Building a Budget Website
11. There's More than One Web Browser
12. Image Formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG and More
13. The Many Flavours of HTML
14. Clean Page Structure - Headings and Lists
15. The Importance of Validation
16. Avoiding the Nuts and Bolts - Content Management Software
17. FrontPage - Easy Pages
18. Dreamweaver - The Professional Touch
19. What You See Isn't Always What You Get
20. Why Doing It Yourself is Best
21. Understanding Web Jargon
22. Don't Be Scared, It's Only Code - HTML for Beginners
23. 5 Steps to Understanding HTML
24. Taking HTML Further
25. Finding a Good HTML Editor
26. CSS and the End of Tables
27. Column Designs with CSS
28. The Basics of Web Servers
29. LAMP - The Most Popular Server System Ever
30. IIS and ASP - Microsoft's Server
31. Setting up a Test Server on Your Own Computer
32. How Databases Work
33. Which Database is Right for You?
34. Uploading Your Website with FTP
35. PHP - Easy Dynamic Websites
36. Perl - Cryptic Power
37. ColdFusion - Quicker Scripting, at a Price
38. JSP - Java on Your Server
39. Python and Ruby - the Newer Alternatives
40. Taking HTML Further with Javascript
41. VBScript - Javascript Made Easy
42. AJAX - Should You Believe the Hype?
43. The Web Designer's Toolbox
44. An Introduction to Paint Shop Pro
45. Photoshop - a Graphic Designer's Dream
46. Free Graphics Alternatives
47. How to Install and Configure a Forum
48. Building Online Communities
49. Using Quizzes and Games to Get Traffic
50. Offering Free Downloads on Your Website
51. Putting Multimedia to Good Use
52. Opening a Web Shop with E-Commerce Software
53. 5 Simple Steps to Accepting Payments
54. Encryption & Security with SSL
55. The Basics of Web Forms
56. 7 Ways to Make Your Web Forms Better
57. The Web is Not Paper
58. Writing for the Web
59. A Question of Scroll Bars
60. Titles and Headlines - It's Not a Newspaper
61. All About Design - Principles and Elements
62. Designing for Search Engines
63. Printing and Sending - the Two Things Users Want to Do
64. The Art of the Logo
65. Picking a Colour Scheme
66. Fonts are More Important Than You Think
67. Beware the Stock Photographer - Picking Your Pictures
68. The Smaller, the Better - Avoiding Graphical Overload
69. An Issue of Width - the Resolution Problem
70. Why Word is Bad for the Web
71. The 5 Principles of Effective Navigation
72. Focus on the User - Task-Oriented Websites
73. Making Searches Simple
74. Time for User Testing
75. Hints All the Way
76. The Case Against Flash
77. Using Flash Sensibly
78. The Evils of PDF's
79. Why Java Will Drive Your Visitors Away
80. 5 Ways to Avoid the 1998 Look
81. Content is King
82. Why You Should Put Your Content in a Weblog Format
83. Cut to the Chase - How to Make Your Website Load Faster
84. How to Run Ads Without Driving Visitors Crazy
85. Ads Under the Radar - Linking to Affiliates
86. Text Ads - Unobtrusive Advertising
87. The Top 10 Biggest Web Design Mistakes
88. Why You Should Stick to Design Conventions
89. 10 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website
90. Making Friends and Influencing People - the Importance of Links
91. How to Get Your Website Talked About on Blogs
92. Tracking Your Visitors
93. RSS - Really Simple Syndication
94. Taking Your Website Mobile
95. Registering Your Users by Stealth
96. How to Make Visitors Add You to Their Favourites
97. Setting Up a Mailing List
98. Designing for Sales
99. It's a World Wide Web - Going International
100. Some Places to Go For More Information

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