In addition to allowing clients to download the normal fare of images, documents, sounds, etc., distributed Java applets can also be downloaded using HotJava. (Recent releases of Netscape, Internet Explorer, and Opera have the same capabilities.) Applets are (usually) small executable programs written in the Java programming language and included in HTML pages, similar to commonly imbedded images.
Java Applets can take the form of almost anything, from simple games and animations to the most complex of programs. You can even develop and add your own applets to your Web site. The potential for this technology is almost limitless; already the sample applets available far exceed anything ever encountered on the Web before.
