Tr> ho> But I believe NN fucked up implementation and choosing Java as
Tr> ho> front-end was way premature by the end of 90s.
Tr>
Tr> To be clear, Java isn't JavaScript. The JS UI was started with NN6
Tr> using an XML UI templating language called XUL. Riff on Ghostbusters,
Tr> "There is no data. There is only XUL!"

I knew the bell wasn't ringing far from truth. Thanks for pointing me to the right waters. I'd not mistake java with javascript, perhaps my memory resonated with the wrong echo from the beginning.

I know XUL, it was pitched by Mozilla years after NN collapsed as something that may help Javascript conquer desktop app development. It never resonated though.

But that makes sense to me, if XUL predecessor as Wikipedia claims developed initially by Netscape Communications in around 1997 was responsible for NN6 rendering and I experienced it around 1999/2000 with my Celeron 300Mhz, no brainer it was slow as hell.

Now I even found right reference regarding this XUL thing to impact performance on slower machine at the time of NN6 release.

Mystery solved.

-h1

.... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a copy.

Re: Re: Microsoft
By: hollowone to Tracker1 on Sun Apr 02 2023 01:11 pm

> I know XUL, it was pitched by Mozilla years after NN collapsed as something
> that may help Javascript conquer desktop app development. It never resonated
> though.
>
> But that makes sense to me, if XUL predecessor as Wikipedia claims developed
> initially by Netscape Communications in around 1997 was responsible for NN6
> rendering and I experienced it around 1999/2000 with my Celeron 300Mhz, no
> brainer it was slow as hell.

Turns out, XUL was kind of just ahead of its time. Nowadays, there's a booming business in desktop apps based on Electron, which is essentially just HTML/JS/CSS web apps with some enhanced APIs and backend resources.

It's also kind of why Apple's Webkit took off rather than Mozilla's Gecko: Where Webkit was made to be easily embeddable into other apps, Gecko & XUL kind of assumed you'd build your apps *inside* it as a framework.

So, when it turned out that the world really wanted an embedded web view component rather than to buy into a whole app framework, Mozilla kind of lost the contest there.

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Re: Re: Microsoft
By: hollowone to Tracker1 on Sun Apr 02 2023 13:11:00

Tr>> To be clear, Java isn't JavaScript. The JS UI was started with NN6
Tr>> using an XML UI templating language called XUL. Riff on
Tr>> Ghostbusters, "There is no data. There is only XUL!"

ho> I knew the bell wasn't ringing far from truth. Thanks for pointing me to
ho> the right waters. I'd not mistake java with javascript, perhaps my memory
ho> resonated with the wrong echo from the beginning.

Yeah... I worked with it a bit, and enjoyed it for what it offered at the time.

Timely blog post..
https:/crisal.io/words/2023/03/30/xul-layout-is-gone.html

ho> I know XUL, it was pitched by Mozilla years after NN collapsed as
ho> something that may help Javascript conquer desktop app development. It
ho> never resonated though.

Yeah, it was ahead of its' time, considering how popular electron is today.

ho> But that makes sense to me, if XUL predecessor as Wikipedia claims
ho> developed initially by Netscape Communications in around 1997 was
ho> responsible for NN6 rendering and I experienced it around 1999/2000 with
ho> my Celeron 300Mhz, no brainer it was slow as hell.

ho> Now I even found right reference regarding this XUL thing to impact
ho> performance on slower machine at the time of NN6 release

Yeah, it was very bad before 2000 or so, but on anything over 1ghz was pretty decent. On today's hardware you wouldn't even notice.


--
Michael J. Ryan
+o roughneckbbs.com
tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

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