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Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

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Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#51

Post by laurentl »

danso wrote: post #28

The tweet that the OP is quoting/responding to is interesting: https://mobile.twitter.com/jdgarciauc3m/status/1005768121230... > Tip of the day. > Scripting languages as first programming language for CS bachelors are WRONG. You are not able to write an OS, a DBMS, or even an Office suite with an scripting language. I honestly thought this was a satire tweet. I guess I just don't associate even a CS bachelor's degree…

Most of the CS tracks I've seen recently (and even back in my days) have an "introduction to C/Linux" module which requires writing common command line tools, starting easy and gradually ramping up to a basic shell, a web proxy, etc.

Not exactly OS/DBMS but still pretty low-level.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#52

Post by dagw »

neals wrote: post #19

The Javascript is compiled to native code, apparently. Maybe there's a Typescript to Cpp transpiler that I haven't heard about?

https://github.com/NectarJS/nectarjs

Still not sure if it's just a 'cool hack' or an attempt at a serious product though.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#53

Post by arghwhat »

danso wrote: post #28

The tweet that the OP is quoting/responding to is interesting: https://mobile.twitter.com/jdgarciauc3m/status/1005768121230... > Tip of the day. > Scripting languages as first programming language for CS bachelors are WRONG. You are not able to write an OS, a DBMS, or even an Office suite with an scripting language. I honestly thought this was a satire tweet. I guess I just don't associate even a CS bachelor's degree…

I very much agree that this is a broken line of argumentation.

However, I find the opinion to be correct: Scripting languages might not be a good first programming language for a CS bachelor, where priority is deep learning of programming. I'd also argue that JavaScript would be a bad candidate, as it is a very "unclean" language, being a poor way to teach language/compiler theory.

As a first practical programming language for a non-CS bachelor, scripting languages are fine. Without CS courses to support you, other approaches might be too difficult, while scripting languages often let you get (terrible) programs up and running (ish) while ignoring basically all CS aspects during the learning phase (only while you're not making anything big, though—the "high level" illusion breaks down fast as things grow).

(Also, yes, you can write a DBMS or an Office suite in a scripting language. I can't possibly comprehend why you'd want to do something like that, but it's very much possible. Bringing OS's into things is cheating, as most compiled languages can't be used there either, and those that work often only work with a subset of the full language.)

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#54

Post by nawgszy »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #39

So of all the good, far more suitable languages they could use, we're getting it written the flaming pile of trash that is JavaScript? Why though?

>good, far more suitable languages

Can you give a simple analysis on what weaknesses JS has that other languages would avoid with no pitfalls of their own?

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#55

Post by dagw »

pimmen wrote: post #21

Why is this trend going on with using js in domains where it previously was not a component? Is it to ease shipping new features? To make it easier for contributors once they make the application open source? Good PR?

Why is this trend going on with using js in domains where it previously was not a component?

Office products need to be on the web these days. Having a common code base between desktops, mobile and web makes that much easier and in that world JavaScript is the lowest common denominator.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#56

Post by bitL »

nawgszy wrote: post #45
bitL wrote: post #5

Oh well, the kool-aid is strong. Next round of what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away... Can somebody please design even worse language so that we can progress by reimplementing everything in it, keeping us occupied for the next 20 years?

>even worse language What's wrong with JS, exactly, that isn't made up for by its advantages? I see these 'kool-aid' / 'JS is cancer' comments all the time, but they don't come with any real details. I feel like you've probably never really used JS, if I'm being honest.

Kool-aid in the sense that JS is extremely attractive to MBA types that don't have to write anything with it. There is a huge pool of JS developers (quality is questionable but price range is mostly low), browsers run everywhere, Node.js made it possible to run the whole stack on it, so that's a win for MBA types and a great value proposition. The fact that it's a historically atrocious language doesn't matter as they have peasants (i.e. us) to deal with it (to be honest, it got much better since async/await was introduced, but hacks/warts are still there to be abused in horrible ways).

I wrote bleeding-edge games and other crazy stuff in JS you might be using right now in your business, so my opinion is not unfounded.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#58

Post by bitL »

setquk wrote: post #42
bitL wrote: post #5

Oh well, the kool-aid is strong. Next round of what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away... Can somebody please design even worse language so that we can progress by reimplementing everything in it, keeping us occupied for the next 20 years?

Not only that, billions of hours of invested time and knowledge will be thrown out of the window instantly and everyone who integrates anything with Office will have to start again from scratch. Literally at least a third of the world is built on bits of spaghetti and duct tape on Office. For developers though, this is chargeable so I'm on the fence :)

Nobody is going to pay you $1200/day to write JavaScript. The converse is true, there is an overload of low-paid JS devs.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#59

Post by chrisseaton »

arghwhat wrote: post #53
danso wrote: post #28

The tweet that the OP is quoting/responding to is interesting: https://mobile.twitter.com/jdgarciauc3m/status/1005768121230... > Tip of the day. > Scripting languages as first programming language for CS bachelors are WRONG. You are not able to write an OS, a DBMS, or even an Office suite with an scripting language. I honestly thought this was a satire tweet. I guess I just don't associate even a CS bachelor's degree…

I very much agree that this is a broken line of argumentation. However, I find the opinion to be correct: Scripting languages might not be a good first programming language for a CS bachelor, where priority is deep learning of programming. I'd also argue that JavaScript would be a bad candidate, as it is a very "unclean" language, being a poor way to teach language/compiler theory. As a first practical programming la…

> for a CS bachelor, where priority is deep learning of programming

The priority is deep learning of computer science, not of programming.

I think JavaScript is a fine language for teaching a lot of CS basics. For example you could run a course based on SICP using JavaScript instead of Scheme, I believe.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#60

Post by arghwhat »

capelio wrote: post #46
bitL wrote: post #5

Oh well, the kool-aid is strong. Next round of what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away... Can somebody please design even worse language so that we can progress by reimplementing everything in it, keeping us occupied for the next 20 years?

How much more real world evidence does HN need to see before the "JS isn't a real language" meme is abandoned? Pretty sure we're up to billions of real world value created by software written in Javascript. If you're still dismissive at this point, it's time to catch up. You've missed the boat.

It's a "real" language, it's just not a terribly good or fast one. It's works decently when its use is limited to what it was made for: manipulating web pages. For anything else, the "designed on the back of a used piece of toilet paper" starts to shine through.

And no, a JIT can't save you from this, it can only make things acceptable.

That it can create "real world value" is an extremely low bar, which is passed by any turing complete language. COBOL creates "real world value".

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