Support system also is supposed to mean sandbox. If the java applet crashes then the VM should recover itself and not take the hosting OS down with it. I can't guarantee that is the reality of it or the way it works, but my understanding of it.
I would say Flash and Shockwave do almost the same thing, but can be equally pointless on a website. You should always ask yourself if you could do the same thing with HTML or a script and have a similar user experience. Or are you creating a wiz-bang interface that is getting in the way of reading the information that you want.
Brian Kelsay
Jonathan Hutchins <> 02/17/05 11:08AM
Personally, I object to having to install an operating system on my operating system in order to see the animated dingbats on somebody's web site. Give me something like HTML that "runs" natively on multiple platforms, that doesn't require me to download and install a support system.