When Should You Use Java Instead of Shockwave

During the past year the Web development community has been buzzing with talk of Java applets and "Shocked" Macromedia Director movies, the two primary types of self-contained programs that put interactivity on a Web page. Now that we've had a chance to see some impressive examples of what can be done with each, it's time to assess when to use one and when the other.

Both Java and Lingo, the programming language used to create Director movies, can be used to create animations, and both can create control panels that allow users to interact with a Web page the way they now can with a CD-ROM. Nam Szeto, partner in the New York-based multimedia development shop, io360, believes that animations and CD-ROM-type programs are best made with Lingo and ported to the Web using Shockwave. He would reserve Java for the more complicated, interactive objects that can't be done with Director, including 3-D animations that can only be "faked" with Director.

A major drawback with Shockwave is that the Macromedia logo appears on the screen each time a movie is launched. Java, on the other hand, lets you create a seamless Web experience, one fully integrated with the other elements on the site.

Among the most common and popular applets are simple ones that display scrolling text on the Web page. These could be produced with Director but are easily made using Javascript, the simple Java scripting language developed by Sun and Netscape. Javascript seems to have become the preferred language for presenting scrolling text. Most Java applets, however, require advanced programming skills, which has brought about a clash of cultures--a "turf thing"--as C++ programmers doing Java development tend to look down their noses at Lingo programmers, claiming that Lingo is not a programming language in the strict sense. People writing Lingo are also paid as little as half of what Java programmers are paid, perhaps due to the glut of people from the CD-ROM industry who are now moving over to Web development as the CD-ROM market diminshes.

Szeto feels that Web development companies need to have expertise in both Java and Shockwave, and that the choice of which to use depends on the "problem" that you're attempting to solve. For fast, simple animation production, Shockwave is better; for more complex, interactive programs, Java is better. One of Szeto's favorite Java sites is Earthweb because it seamlessly integrates Java applets into the site.

The IBM Annual Report offers Java applets that let you do things like calculate the current value of an investment made in an IBM stock at any point of its history. A favorite applet of mine is a casino-like poker game.

John Reaves of the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theater Company, well-known for its work in interactive multimedia, feels that Java is especially good for what he calls "net-aware" applications. Java applets can have more "intelligence" built into them, taking into account a number of ambient factors, rather than simply the actions of the users. He likened it to knowing whether an electronic audience was laughing or crying.

David M. Blumenstein of Technology Strategies and Ogilvy & Mather Interactive says:

Since Java is being licensed now by so many companies (development/network/communications), and it is also being incorporated into so many browsers, such as Navigator, Internet Explorer, and IBM's Web Explorer, it is fair to say that Java will be more universal than Shockwave. With Macromedia's plug-in there isn't the sell-through, so I would have to download it, install it, and configure it, on each individual machine.

I cannot guarantee prospective clients that everyone out there is going to be running Shockwave, so Java, while it may be tougher to program 'properly,' makes more sense to me for global applications, where time is built into the production schedule to make sure it is done right. Macromedia's Shockwave is great for what it does: display Director movies/animation complete with sound and audio. It is a straightforward process to create and display such using Shockwave, and if everyone had it automatically installed on their system, it would be great.

He concedes, in the end, however, that there are always going to be tradeoffs between convenience and functionality.

These are a few of the points of view I've found in my investigation of this topic. Until next week...

- April 10, 1996 -