Introduction
Once you have finalized your applet code, the final stage in the development process will be to determine how to make your program available to browsers on the web.
In the last section, we showed an example of this when we created a class file, referenced it with our HTML, and sat back while web surfers played with our applet.
This approach is realistic for "example" applets and silly little ticker tape programs typical of some Java development, but it may be unrealistic for real-world applications.
Rather than simply placing raw class files on the web for download, it is likely that as your applets grow in size, you may want to utilize some of the distribution technologies now available to Java developers.
Though, placing your raw class files on the web will work, it is not necessarily the most efficient way to distribute your applet.
As you will know if you have spent any time web surfing or playing with Java applet demos, the Internet's biggest bottleneck is the speed of the slowest link in a connection.
Although the so-called backbones of the Internet might exchange data at massive rates, most people browse the Web with modems.
That's very slow.
In fact, it is so slow that it is very possible that if your applet takes too long to download, potential clients will simply surf-on and ignore your dour looking gray square box page.
You will never even get to show off all your hard work.
Perhaps we should take a moment to get some perspective on this problem.
How slow is slow?
Let's assume that the average viewer of your page will be using a 14.4 modem.
Though this may not be the typical modem speed used by the average web programmer, it is actually a fairly realistic assumption about the average web surfer and probably will be for at least a couple more years.
With their 14.4 modems, your viewers can expect it to take 1 second per kilobyte to transfer.
This means that 60k worth of class files would take a minute to download.
What's worse, you must also factor in the time it takes for their web browser to start the virtual machine and instantiate your applet.
Most people have enough patience for about 5 seconds.
You get the picture.
Traditionally, Java has addressed the speed bottleneck by attempting to be an amazingly small language.
Further, developments in the JDK have been slowly incorporated into the main web browsers so that the majority of the class files your applets will need will already be resident on the client's machine.
However, until recently, there were no great ways to address the size of your own code, or the class libraries that you use.
Fortunately, recent developments in archiving and compression technologies have given developers excellent ways to make their large applet code much more modem-friendly.
NEXT
Selena Sol contributes to the JavaBoutique's Introduction to Java. Selena curently works for Barclays Capital in London, one of the leading global investment banks in Europe and has worked as a software developer for the National Center for Human Genome research, Microline Software, Neuron Data, and Electric Eye in Singapore. Selena is perhaps best-known for creating the Public Domain Web Script Archive (Extropia) and writing several books on Web Programming (Perl, CGI, Java).
Email: selena@extropia.com
New on the Java Boutique:
New Review:
Time Management Made Easy with the Quartz Enterprise Job Scheduler
Why not just use the Java timer API? This open source scheduling
API boasts simplicity, ease-of-integration, a well-rounded feature
set, and it's free!
New Applet:
Reverse Complement
Reverse Complement is a simple applet that converts DNA or RNA
sequences into three useful formats.
Elsewhere on internet.com:
WebDeveloper Java
Lots of Java information on webdeveloper.com
WDVL Java
Thorough Java resource at the Web Developer's Virtual Library.
ScriptSearch Java
Hundreds of free Java code files to download.
jGuru: Your View of the Java Universe
Customizable portal with online training, FAQs, regular news updates, and tutorials.
| 
