Subject: Java chemistry applets?

From: [email-masked] (David J. States)
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 10:01:25 -0500

Sun has been promoting a new programming language, java, as a tool
for creating portable applications on internet.  Instead of constantly
going back to the host for additional information (a response to a mouse
click, for example), the applet executes on the local client.

One of their demos is a page of molecules that can be viewed and rotated
in the web browser.  See:

http://java.sun.com/applets/applets/ChemicalModels/index.html

but you need a "java capable" web browser such as hotjava, available
from http://java.sun.com.  Netscape has announced support for java,
but I have not seen a date for when the product will be released.

I was wondering, has anyone picked up on the Sun demo?  Are people
designing chemistry and biochemistry specific java class libraries
and applets?  Seems like it could be a powerful set of tools.

David

-- 
David J. States
Institute for Biomedical Computing / Washington University in St. Louis

---

From: "Ernest Friedman-Hill" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 13:20:29 -0700

I've been looking at java for chemical (and other) applications. Both the
potential and the limitations are surprising in the current incarnation.
We're going to need some ports of the Solaris- and NT- specific implementations
to other platforms before java/HotJava starts to take off; the insanely
Sparc/Solaris-specific prototype was a big turn-off for me. I got the code,
and the accompanying material in effect "dares you" to port it.

Another big question was - why invent a new language for this purpose; why
not use (for example) Safe-Tcl?

My biggest problems with HotJava as it stands are that the java applets are
1) painfully unaware of the browser they're running in (for example, they
cannot (without some MAJOR hacking) access the fields of and HTML form on the
page in which they're embedded, and 2) the security aspects are pretty dismal,
despite Sun's claims to the contrary.

But the CONCEPT - active messages on the WWW - is and will be the Next Big
Thing (TM), mark my words.

On Sep 5, 10:01am, David J. States wrote:
> Subject: CCL:Java chemistry applets?
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-- 

---------------------------------------------------------
Ernest Friedman-Hill
Senior Member of Technical Staff
Scientific Computing Department
Sandia National Laboratories
Org. 8117, MS 9214
PO Box 969 Livermore, CA 94550