Ask HN: What if JavaScript isn't the solution to everything • Hacker News Board

speg wrote: post #6

psyc wrote: post #5

If you stop thinking like a front-end web dev, and take a step back from the whole thing, the status quo is truly insane and embarrassing. A many-billion dollar, world changing industry has been exclusively constrained to one dynamically-typed, weird language cooked up by one guy in a hurry, over 20 years ago. How can such a phenomenon even exist, without programmers falling over themselves to create a development ec…

Because it would have only worked for half the users. HTML/CSS/JS support parity across the browsers is a relatively new thing. If IE had python support and Firefox supported Ruby, what would have all the websites been written in? It's kind of a messy miracle that that didn't happen and we got to where we are today. Now, with established standards support WebAssembly might be the next step you're looking for.

I may be the minority but I don't consider it a burden to need more than one app for something. Even today people have installed a half dozen chat apps to keep up with friends on different networks. If half the sites require Firefox and half Chrome then that's still only two apps enabling dozens of web apps for daily use.

Re: Ask HN: What if JavaScript isn't the solution to everything

#15

Post by psyc » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 1:01 PM UTC

speg wrote: post #6

psyc wrote: post #5

If you stop thinking like a front-end web dev, and take a step back from the whole thing, the status quo is truly insane and embarrassing. A many-billion dollar, world changing industry has been exclusively constrained to one dynamically-typed, weird language cooked up by one guy in a hurry, over 20 years ago. How can such a phenomenon even exist, without programmers falling over themselves to create a development ec…

Because it would have only worked for half the users. HTML/CSS/JS support parity across the browsers is a relatively new thing. If IE had python support and Firefox supported Ruby, what would have all the websites been written in? It's kind of a messy miracle that that didn't happen and we got to where we are today. Now, with established standards support WebAssembly might be the next step you're looking for.

If barely-passable, but mostly imaginary compatibility could be achieved on JS and CSS, then it could have been achieved with something like WebAssembly. That it wasn't is just history and incentives.

Re: Ask HN: What if JavaScript isn't the solution to everything

#16

Post by mcphage » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 1:20 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #14

speg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it would have only worked for half the users. HTML/CSS/JS support parity across the browsers is a relatively new thing. If IE had python support and Firefox supported Ruby, what would have all the websites been written in? It's kind of a messy miracle that that didn't happen and we got to where we are today. Now, with established standards support WebAssembly might be the next step you're looking for.

I may be the minority but I don't consider it a burden to need more than one app for something. Even today people have installed a half dozen chat apps to keep up with friends on different networks. If half the sites require Firefox and half Chrome then that's still only two apps enabling dozens of web apps for daily use.

You're in the minority.

Re: Ask HN: What if JavaScript isn't the solution to everything

#17

Post by lj3 » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 1:23 PM UTC

mcphage wrote: post #16

true_religion wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be the minority but I don't consider it a burden to need more than one app for something. Even today people have installed a half dozen chat apps to keep up with friends on different networks. If half the sites require Firefox and half Chrome then that's still only two apps enabling dozens of web apps for daily use.

You're in the minority.

No, he's not. My mother runs Firefox, Chrome and IE. She uses each one for different sites because certain sites only work well on certain browsers.

PS: The idea that the web has parity is a joke. It doesn't.

Re: Ask HN: What if JavaScript isn't the solution to everything

#18

Post by psyc » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 1:25 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #14

speg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it would have only worked for half the users. HTML/CSS/JS support parity across the browsers is a relatively new thing. If IE had python support and Firefox supported Ruby, what would have all the websites been written in? It's kind of a messy miracle that that didn't happen and we got to where we are today. Now, with established standards support WebAssembly might be the next step you're looking for.

I may be the minority but I don't consider it a burden to need more than one app for something. Even today people have installed a half dozen chat apps to keep up with friends on different networks. If half the sites require Firefox and half Chrome then that's still only two apps enabling dozens of web apps for daily use.

Among the sites I visit frequently are several that only work well in Opera, one or two that only work well in Firefox, and one that only works at all in Chrome.

Re: Ask HN: What if JavaScript isn't the solution to everything

#19

Post by ZanrielJames » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 1:28 PM UTC

tumblen wrote: post #8

The javascript ecosystem is feeling better than ever to me right now. The only reason that people are getting "javascript fatigue" and complaining that JS is being used for everything is because so many people are working so hard to improve and innovate the language/ecosystem... and so many people are actually finding applicable benefit to that work. I've built several native iOS apps in Ruby with RubyMotion - no one…

The job market right now is pretty heavily skewed towards the whole JS stack, so your last comment is almost like "nobody's got to use the internet".

Re: Ask HN: What if JavaScript isn't the solution to everything

#20

Post by progval » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 1:39 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #14

speg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it would have only worked for half the users. HTML/CSS/JS support parity across the browsers is a relatively new thing. If IE had python support and Firefox supported Ruby, what would have all the websites been written in? It's kind of a messy miracle that that didn't happen and we got to where we are today. Now, with established standards support WebAssembly might be the next step you're looking for.

I may be the minority but I don't consider it a burden to need more than one app for something. Even today people have installed a half dozen chat apps to keep up with friends on different networks. If half the sites require Firefox and half Chrome then that's still only two apps enabling dozens of web apps for daily use.

It wouldn't be half/half, because many websites would then abstain from using a scripting language at all. Maybe more something like 90% pure HTML/CSS, 5% Firefox, 5% Chrome?