posted 22 years ago
The AWT components are "heavyweight" in that they have a peer component on the operating system. this makes their look and feel dependant on which OS you are running. The Swing components are less tied to the peer and are called "lightwieght". This is a pro for Swing.
There were some bugs and design problems with the AWT that were corrected in Swing.
Swing is much more powerful and much more flexible.
Swing is therefore much more difficult to use (some would say tempermental . . . ). Increased flexibility is approximately equal to increased complexity.
Swing comes with a whole new set of bugs and design problems . . .
Most browsers only support up to 1.1.8 without a plug-in. Plug-ins require the end user to do a download - so some people try to avoid this. Swing didn't come out until jdk1.3 - so using Swing virtually requires a plug-in if it is to be used in a browser.
"JavaRanch, where the deer and the Certified play" - David O'Meara
