What the hell is going on here? So many technologies over the years but still no widespread use of native code / binary code / bytecode in Web browsers in 2019? It seems like the situation was much better several years ago, when, despite security issues, the use of ActiveX, Java / JRE and Flash Player plugins was widespread. In particular, the latter two had near ubiquitous penetration on desktop systems. And it wasn't just the install base of these browser plugins - you would routinely come across tiny applications, games, puzzles, riddles, animations, and other useful stuff within webpages, executed using these platforms. Not any more. In a way, despite us having rich Internet applications [RIAs] such as Gmail, that run inside a Web browser, we've lost out on those tiny little applets which used to run within Web pages and were a lot of fun [not to mention useful].
Perhaps some parallels can be drawn between this, and the Russian approach to their rockets - Proton and Soyuz. The Russian approach has been to continue to evolve and refine the same basic decades-old designs - adding new technologies, optimizing components, making refinements, and so on. No doubt this approach eliminates the possibility of a fundamentally new design from scratch, but it does have the benefits of a product whose troubles have been sorted out, which has been optimized to its theoretical limits, and which has superb reliability and availability, backed by decades of practical experience. In any case, having something that works nicely - even if somewhat inefficiently - is better than having nothing at all. The point here is what's the use of creating technology after technology for native code inside browsers if you aren't going to commit to any one and bring useful products to the users? ActiveX, for example, could've been and should've been evolved and refined to solve its security issues [sandboxing, for example], instead of abandoning it altogether.
Related blog posts by me:
- https://rishabhsingla.blogspot.com/2008/12/prediction-googles-native-client.html
- https://rishabhsingla.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-full-power-of-googles-chrome-os.html
- https://rishabhsingla.blogspot.com/2016/10/macromedia-flash-was-and-is-great.html
- http://rishabhsingla.blogspot.com/2015/12/flash-bashing-is-cheap-trick-that-idiot.html
- https://rishabhsingla.blogspot.com/2010/08/apples-thoughts-on-flash-are.html
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