There was a time where programming in Java was funnier than it is today.

Back in 1997 I published in my own web page my first Java applet. It was a calculator. That was way cool; I was able to share with the visitors of my site a whole program: not only the source code, but the whole thing, working, available for anyone to use, no matter the browser, no matter the platform, no matter whe geographical location.

You can play with that applet here. It still works on my MacBook and on my G5, almost 10 years later, running under the Java 1.5 virtual machine. I am simply amazed (It might not be the most interesting code you’ll ever see, nor the most beautifully architectured one, but it did what I wanted it to do… so I consider it a success. Thankfully I see things different now).

So there was a time were Java was cool, new, easy to learn, the way to go. And here’s a story to show how cool it was. Continue reading →