What is a Java applet and a Java application? What are the differences between the two? What are the advantages of an applet over a Java application?
Hi
A Java applet is a program that is run on the browser whereas a Java application is any program that can be executed in the console window itself. The application is also called as a stand-alone application as it can be executed in the console window itself. The difference between applet and application is that applet doesn’t have a ‘main method’ whereas application has a ‘main method’. Also, an applet is imposed with high-security restrictions whereas there are hardly any restrictions on an application.
The advantages of applets are: their execution is very simple as no software has to be downloaded, displaying animations are easy, and constructor, the size of a frame, etc. are not required.
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A Java applet is a tiny application written in Java and distributed to users in the form of bytecode. The Java applet is started by a user using a web browser and the Java applet is executed within a JVM or Java Virtual Machine in a process that is separate from the web browser itself.
The Java applet may appear in a new application window, a frame in the web page, a stand-alone tool for testing applets, or Sun’s AppletViewer. The Java applets were introduced in 1995 when the first version of the Java language was released. Java applets can be coded using any programming language that compiles to Java bytecode.
They are normally written in Java but other languages can be used like Pascal, Jython, Eiffel using SmartEiffel, JRuby, or Scala. A Java application, on the other hand, is a Java program that runs stand alone in a server or client.
The instructions are interpreted by the Java Virtual Machine and similar to any programming language that runs in its local environment, Java programs have full access to all the resources in the machine.
