Scripting support was
added to the browser with the development of JavaScript (unrelated to Java despite its
name) and VBScript. To handle these scripting languages, interpreters were plugged into
the browser. An extensible browser architecture proved to be a powerful feature.
Thanks to extensibility, applications such as Macromedia Flash added a new virtual
machine on top of the browser, allowing for even more flexible and intense applications.
The extensible browser then brought about ActiveX technology on the Windows platform,
whereby Windows application functionality could be run within the browser when
using Microsoft browsers (or alternative ones with a plug-in that supported ActiveX).
This powerful solution enabled native functionality to be accessible from networked
applications (see Figure 1-2). This got around the restrictions imposed by the security
sandbox and lowest common denominator approach of the JVM, but ultimately, this
led to problems in the same vein as distributing client-only applications; specifically,
a heavy configuration of the desktop, was necessary to get them to work.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41