On Jan 18, 2008 4:39 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Not that I think we should go headlong into using java. There are many good arguments against having most than the absolute minimum of executable code launched from our pages. Accessibility for the disabled, client compatibility, client performance issues (and accessibility to people on computers of limited performance), maintance and longevity issues, compatibility with non-web mediums (print, etc). I won't belabor this further, since we've discussed this before.
I won't disagree here: thus "if necessary, for heavy-weight stuff". I think it's definitely a good thing that MediaWiki currently operates using nothing beyond HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and a minimum of the latter.
I'd like to see robust, complete, and fully free licensed Java installs for Windows/Mac which we could redistribute ourselves if we wanted, and which we could reasonably expect people to be using as their normal Java environments before I'll concede that Java's freeness issues are gone entirely, but that really does seem within reach now.
Also no disagreement from me: "not *quite* ideal, but hopefully getting there".