I recently took a training course
for Microsoft Online Services, and at one point the instructor sounded like he was
describing Java Web Start. So I asked the instructor if the latest Microsoft offering
was going to be like Java Web Start. The instructor told me that it was in some ways,
but really didn't follow the Java design. After the course I told the instructor I was
sorry for using a Java example, but I couldn't think of anything else at the time. The
instructor said that was OK, but then added a few things that made me realize that he
thought I was talking about applets!
Well who does know about Java Web Start? You never see it anywhere on the web, so I
really shouldn't have expected a Microsoft person to know about it, because they
would never have had a chance to come across it. Java Web start lets you click on a link
that downloads a Java application to your desktop. This means you can get around file
permission problems that Java applets usually present. You no longer have
bandwidth concerns, because now your application is running on somebody's desktop, instead
of a tcp/ip data stream. The following link runs a Java 2D application on your desktop
that I copied out of the book, Java 2D Graphics, by Johnathan Knudsen.