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The JVM should be acceptable for client apps, but its implementation footprint is bulky in most respects(download, memory consumption and startup times) and it has never attained the kind of first-class browser integration and bundling that Flash has.

OTOH Flash performance is quite good now, and I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. The bottleneck for most apps is in software rendering, not code performance.

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Fair enough. I guess I would like a lower-level environment so I can make my own choices. Having the low level available means I don't have to live with someone else's choices; I can just write (or find) my own language and have a reasonable chance of it performing well.

Sure, there are things like parenscript that abstract away JavaScript now. But SBCL or Chicken Scheme is faster than JavaScript in most cases, and have more language features. So if I could just make one of those emit LLVM code, I'd have all my favorite language features in the browser with no speed compromises.

As an engineer, I know I have to make compromises... but if I don't have to compromise, I'm not going to complain about it ;)

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