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Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#111

Post by lloyd-christmas »

falcolas wrote: post #68
nickstefan12 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the lack of a good standard library might have something to do with it. I'll admit im not sure.

The shaming of mature libraries doesn't help either. Try showing off something with jQuery these days.

I honestly can't say I've seen any true jQuery shaming exclusive of the cherry-picked click-bait blogs. The only "shaming" I hear is typically post-interview justifications as to why someone wasn't hired, as if it might not simply be the possibility that someone else was more qualified.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#112

Post by gravypod »

I think many people are missing what's happening here. This isn't the first time we have seen lots of churn. Every time some group discovers something "new" they latch on to it and try to shape it in their image of what is the best. This is natural and important.

Even looking back about 20 years, how many companies where making CPUs? How many different architectures where there? How many companies where making PC clones?

Remember

    RISC is going to change everything - Hackers
We get fanatical about random things every few years because the technology is generally good, then we all thing "that's stupid I like it better like this" and after a few years of unmaintainable messes we settle on the middle ground that most people are ok with (x86).

This is natural the world isn't ending

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#113

Post by tempodox »

infinity0 wrote: post #58
jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a large extent this is true because the javascript community is busy with the re-invention of all of computer history, only without applying all of the lessons learned. Activity does not equate quality.

Not only are they doing that, but they are insanely arrogant about rejecting criticism that they're doing this too.

With some of the comments around here being a demonstration of this very phenomenon. But then, “what I cannot build, I do not understand”. The kids may be rewriting the universe in JS, but hopefully they will learn something from it, too. When we did it, in the bad old days, it was Basic and Assembler. Those environments were about as shitty and unstable as JS is today, but otoh that may foster an appreciation for proper tools once you get your hands on them. It worked like that for me. And, besides, arrogance is the privilege of youth. It would be very strange indeed if we didn't encounter it in this space.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#114

Post by danappelxx »

roblabla wrote: post #101
tempodox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> explanation for why their platform / language / framework [...] did not become the de facto tool You're implying this happened to JS because of some merit. But it didn't, it was just sheer coincidence and bad luck (for most of us at least, including users).

Explain what the coincidence was ? There are alternatives everywhere (ActiveX, flash, java, visual basic IIRC). And yet here we are, with JS. I believe JS came here because it actually is the best language we have had in the web. It's so easy to throw shit arround, but let's be honest with ourselves, this isn't purely out of luck.

JS won out the web because it came with HTML5, not the other way around.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#115

Post by cerved »

cdata wrote: post #94
jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a large extent this is true because the javascript community is busy with the re-invention of all of computer history, only without applying all of the lessons learned. Activity does not equate quality.

It's easy to sit back and critisize JavaScript and the web with dismissive comments like this. I have heard variations on these same memes for many years. But something that I almost never hear: critics offering a candid explanation for why their platform / language / framework - which maybe wasn't perfect but CERTAINLY compared to JavaScript was awesome - did not become the de facto tool across as diverse a spectrum…

quantity !== quality

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#116

Post by snarfy »

jjnoakes wrote: post #89
snarfy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with native apps? They use less memory, battery, and processor than an interpreted stack. They can be more responsive than the hardwired 16ms latency built into the browser. If you need network it's not hard to open a socket. The browser itself is a native app opening sockets. In pretty much every respect, native apps are better for the user than web apps. The person that benefits the most from web apps…

I'm not taking a side here, but I would like to advocate for a fair comparison, since you have skipped all of the trade-offs in the other direction. For example, web apps are often easier to discover, easier to update, easier to manage (since you only have one version in the wild you have to handle), easier to launch (especially for first-time users), easier to use from different platforms, more secure (debatable, bu…

Thanks for this. I was meaning to respond to my own comment but you made the points for me. It definitely goes both ways.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#117

Post by 27182818284 »

snarfy wrote: post #87
civilian wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. I guess you're welcome to do that? We browser coders will just continue to go to market faster. It's pretty cool that, if you put your work in, you can make a GUI on the browser that is accessible to all desktops and phones. That's 2 billion users. The obvious question is: what would you replace it with? Do you want to replace it all with native apps? Or do you think that this whole internet thing is overrated?

What's wrong with native apps? They use less memory, battery, and processor than an interpreted stack. They can be more responsive than the hardwired 16ms latency built into the browser. If you need network it's not hard to open a socket. The browser itself is a native app opening sockets. In pretty much every respect, native apps are better for the user than web apps. The person that benefits the most from web apps…

>What's wrong with native apps?

Because you really don't need a native application to look up the time the local Thai place is open or if the local independent movie theater has a showing tonight. Installing two native apps to do that is burdensome on consumers and producers

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#118

Post by prophesi »

aikah wrote: post #36

> For example angular 2 is not compatible with angular 1 That's not the problem, angular 1 and angular 2 are 2 completely different frameworks that share the name and the team only. The team wanted to piggyback on the fame of the first version, but they share absolutely nothing conceptually. and contrary to what the Angular team says there is no "upgrade path", you need to learn the stuff from scratch once again. The…

It was quite the rough path when I converted an app from v1 to v2. First I had to get the app to work with Typescript (not necessary, but it seemed there'd be better docs/tutorials in Typescript with v2). Then gradually rewrite each piece of code using ng-upgrade as I relearned everything. But I still must say that v2 definitely provides the advantages to warrant the hassle.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#119

Post by qznc »

roblabla wrote: post #101
tempodox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> explanation for why their platform / language / framework [...] did not become the de facto tool You're implying this happened to JS because of some merit. But it didn't, it was just sheer coincidence and bad luck (for most of us at least, including users).

Explain what the coincidence was ? There are alternatives everywhere (ActiveX, flash, java, visual basic IIRC). And yet here we are, with JS. I believe JS came here because it actually is the best language we have had in the web. It's so easy to throw shit arround, but let's be honest with ourselves, this isn't purely out of luck.

JS is the only language integrated into the browser and the DOM. Netscape rejected other languages (Python, Perl, TCL) because of syntax, so Brendan Eich disguised Scheme into Java syntax and hacked up a prototype in 10 days.

Today, Javascript is sooo interwoven with the DOM in browsers that it is near impossible to separate them. Google planned to do this for Dart, but gave up. If they had done this and other browser vendors had followed, adding a third and forth and more languages would have been (relatively) easy, because the abstraction were in place. Then we would have seen a healthy competition.

There is asm.js. Maybe we will get a "web bytecode" at some point, but that will easily take a decade and more. The pressure is increasing, because our CPUs don't get exponentially more powerful anymore. And delivering apps via the web is still going strong.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#120

Post by cygned »

bloomca wrote: post #107

The problem is that everything in JS exploded during just few years (Node was published in 2009), and it took few years to build tooling around Node to start utilising all this power. And then everyone started to build "rich" web applications (it is called differently every year), with the "best" tool existing. I personally see two major problems – usually cool startups who can afford using the bleeding edge will die…

As someone who's working in that environment every day I cannot agree more.
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