A bean is just a software module that has been carefully structured so that it is easily re-usable most ANYWHERE. Lot's of the class that we use all the time are already beans, they are not application or "context" specific.
From:
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/Beans/JBShortCourse/ beans.html#beanIntroWhat
What's a Bean?
A Bean is a JavaBeans component. Beans are independent, reusable software modules. Beans may be visible objects, like AWT components, or invisible objects, like queues and stacks. A builder/integration tool manipulates Beans to create applets and applications.
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You need an init in an
applet to make a GENERIC method that the containing application (the browser or AppletViewer) can call on ANY applet to get it going. Constructors are not Generic. They must match the name of the Applet class.
The HTML page names the class that is the Applet. The browser does not actually do a "new Applet();" command. Remember the browser itself is (probably) not written in java. It is a native application making a call to a java class with an agreed upon "interface" (the AppletStub). The agreement is the set of methods that the browser must be able to honor on ANY APPLET like init(), start(), stop(), and setStub(). These are called by the browser without your coding them.
[This message has been edited by Cindy Glass (edited June 01, 2001).]