The Applet is Deprecated

     Here is yet another example of mankind's arrogance.  
The applet tag was just about as simple as you could get 
when it came to adding dynamic content.  It was 
ingenious.  A dedicated hard working programmer could 
write code that could provide new dimensions to a web 
page and the hard working small business person could add 
it to their web page with a few simple parameter tags.  
Then came the object and embed tags.  What was simple now 
became complex.  You now had to add two parameter lists 
for each, with what used to be called an applet.
    I guess it started with the lawsuits.  Sun sued 
Microsoft, Microsoft sued Sun and us programmers were 
caught in the middle, forgotten, without a hint of any of 
that customer service they tried to cram down our throats 
when we paid of their products or services.  Yes the 
petty battles caused java class objects not to work with 
IE while Mozilla based browsers had to use another set of 
tags, the embed tags, to call the Java class file we 
slaved over.  So what was once, easy enough for a high 
schooler to code, now required an advanced computer 
science degree.
     You know I put off getting into the Internet when I 
first heard about it in 1993.  I knew it would consume 
me.  I had read about gold rushes in the past and I 
couldn't recall any of the second wave of prospectors 
getting rich.  I considered it.  Between 93 and 95 I 
spent about $300 on books trying to figure out how to 
climb onto the Internet band wagon.  Then I decided I 
better put on the skids so I bought a boat.  For the next 
couple of years I invested my time in restoration, wood 
working, and learning craftsmanship instead.  Then the 
Japanese announced they'd pay a million dollars for c 
programmers, in 1998.  I could learn C.  So I did and I 
got back into the Internet.
     The internet was the new papyrus.  You could write 
your book and publish it too, FREE.  This was fantastic 
so I invested all my time in html.  Not the C route I had 
planned, besides the Japanese deal was off and it was 
1999 - 2000 and the internet bubble was starting to 
crack.
   I did however, jump off the deep end with Java.  I 
spent days, months trying to craft code the perfect way.  
I came up with an aggregate shopping cart.  Now I know 
that doesn't mean much to most of you folks out there, 
but in 1999 when I first came up with an aggregate 
shopping cart there weren't any.  You'd go to the typical 
shopping cart on the Internet, put something in your 
cart, by clicking add to cart, and whoosh!  The cart 
would go on up to the checkout stand.  Then you'd have to 
navigate your way back to the web page your were on and 
go through the process again.  It would quite literally 
be like going to a brick and mortar store, putting 
something in your metal shopping cart and Whoosh!  The 
metal goes up to the checkout stand and you have to 
trudge up there and bring it back to your isle.  It 
was/is totally not like consumers were used to shopping.  
Not only were there no aggregate shopping carts, there 
were no sales tax boxes or real time shipping.  Plus 93% 
of all credit card numbers were sent unencrypted so not 
only did people have to trudge up to get their carts on a 
pseudo internet store, they were thrown to the den of 
thieves after they paid for their goods or services.  It 
was no wonder the internet bubble burst.  I even heard 
that one billion dollar start up, pets dot com, only had 
a thousand dollars in sales.  Go figure.  Those poor guys 
with a billion dollars in stock were probably frizzled 
beyond compare as they ran around trying to get this 
internet thing to work to make sales.
    So html was perfect.  It was the simplest programming 
language, if you will, in the world.  By 2000 I figured 
every high school in the country must be teaching it so a 
simple applet with a few parameter tags would be the 
easiest shopping cart in the world to add to a web page.  
I figured if the business person, and by now everyone was 
trying to sell something on the internet, didn't know 
html, they had a son, daughter, nephew or a grand kid who 
could write it for them.  But I soon discovered nobody 
knew html.  At least in the local community organizations 
I got involved with to promote and try and get some 
feedback on my software/applet designs. All of a sudden 
it seemed, everybody was a computer expert.  You couldn't 
tell them nothing about the internet or computers and 
they sure weren't willing to sit down and learn how to 
install (or read the docs) a free shopping cart..  They 
knew all they needed to know about computers because they 
had all, at one time or another, had a computer key board 
in their hands and from that point on they were computer 
experts.  One local club had a non profit donate some 
computers and an internet connection and the civic 
leaders had a computer committee where they elected a 
bookkeeper as the head of the committee because she was a 
devout computer expert, knowing how to use quick books 
and all.  Couldn't save a Word document as html though.
    Why put the power of computing in the hands of the 
people?  Give them complete control over their shopping 
cart.  But even a cart as simple as using an applet with 
parameters killed the concept.  Instead everybody flocked 
to EBay where the get rich quick stories, i.e. the new 
gold rush, had endowed a new set of experts who knew how 
to submit their credit card numbers to eBay for billing.  
Nobody sold anything, but they knew how to pay eBay for 
their listings.  My cart was free.
   So getting back to it, now the applet tag has been 
deprecated.  Actually, I think it was deprecated with 
hmtl 2.0 or something, and now were actually going to see 
it deleted from html 5.0, so it's time, or rather the 
last chance, to convert your applet tags to object tags, 
except there's one thing, YOU HAVE TO USE OBJECT AND 
EMBED TAGS.  So now a simple applet with three lines 
becomes an object with fourteen lines and some of those 
lines have some pretty scary attributes the public will 
never take time to figure out.  So what was once simple, 
and could empower the public with control of their own 
online businesses, has become complex and put control of 
free speech, free enterprise and the internet back into 
the hands of corporate oligarchies.  But Hey!  An object 
sounds cooler doesn't it?

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