Tips like this one abounded, yet you don't see all that many Java applications running inside browsers, so in this sense Java definitely has not "taken over the world."

The debate continued to rage in 2007/2008, see: True problem with Applets over at Javalobby.

Also, the technique of garbage collection used by the JVM for reclaiming no-longer-needed memory could cause noticeable slowdowns at times. There were other problems too, for example with so-called lazy verification of Java classes before they were loaded.

You've heard of "DLL Hell" I expect, a problem in the Microsoft Windows operating system environment  — if not, read this. Microsoft has worked on this, and to some extent ameliorated the problem with the introduction of its .NET Framework — specifically, via the use of .NET assemblies.

In similar vein, there's also a "JRE Hell" — to do with the profusion of JREs at different release levels, and the uncertainty about whether a particular system had a new-enough JRE installed to be capable of executing an application that used new features available in a recent JDK (Java Development Kit).

Fear of change (and the hard work needed to cope with it) has led many developers to stick with JDK 1.4 (released early 2002), rather than moving on to JDK 1.5 even though it offered useful new features.

For example, here's an unofficial mid-2008 poll of installed JDK versions which shows nearly 40% of those surveyed had not then moved to Java 5 (much less Java 6).

By the way, If you're confused about Java version naming, see here. It seems that Sun have picked up Microsoft's bad habit of changing direction on version naming every few years. This leads me to wonder if "Java 7" will come out at about the same time as "Windows 7" ... Now that would be amusingly piquant!

Interestingly, some of the criticisms of Java began to be levelled against .NET for the somewhat similar weak points of the two architectures (like garbage collection and the problems it causes for real-time computing).

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