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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

#191

Post by cirgue »

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.

I will abandon my skepticism of JavaScript as soon as JavaScript boosters abandon their infomercialesque “millions of people can’t be wrong!” attitude and make a compelling case for the language itself. JavaScript is all we have for web dev which is why it’s so popular. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed language, it just means that no one has been able to popularize better solutions because of network effects.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#192

Post by htor »

gizmo wrote: post #124
htor wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this js-is-not-a-real-language stand is only to be expected from someone like a professor or a computer science student. universities and educational institutions in general will always be the last ones to adapt to changes, after the rest of society has moved forward, and they will try imposing those conservative opinions on everyone who are not in their camp. times are changing, computers are becoming more complex a…

Except computers have not gotten more complex. We are dealing with the same kind of filesystems, virtual memory, relational databases, encryption, compression, and network stacks as 20 years ago. Objections against javascript are not Luddite objections against all types of higher level abstractions; the complaint is that javascript is not suitable for the creation of complex high quality software. If you beat your he…

> The total absence of high quality software written in javascript is sufficient evidence to conclude that javascript is not a tool suitable for serious application development.

a little overstatement, but okay. js is very suitable for this in my opinion. i don't what counts as "serious" application development in your world, but i've seen quite many good, performant applications around written in js. and servers too!

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#194

Post by randomname2 »

ksec wrote: post #126
arghwhat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wonder if they are using TypeScript. The old Javascript were very bad, recent Javascripts were bad, today's Javascript are OK, future Javascript / TypeScript is actually pretty decent. Of course I do hope something else has taken its place.

The linked Twitter thread states that they do use TypeScript: https://twitter.com/TheLarkInn/status/1006861097729585154

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#195

Post by recursive »

shawnz wrote: post #179
JCSato wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the confusing part for me, yes. Javascript is fine and well, but C# seems the better choice in general here.

What makes it the better choice in this situation? C# can't run in browsers whereas Office 365 can.

Well, blazor exists now, so that's not totally true.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#196

Post by StavrosK »

pdpi wrote: post #176
workinthehead wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every dynamically-typed language has "weird" behaviour around type coercion, that's simply the nature of the beast. sure wish i knew what you are talking about w/r/t "silently failing". JS has working exceptions just like 99% of widely used languages. I'm very glad that you've been omniscient enough to determine what "proper" parallel support is, though. How's that working out for you? Meanwhile, those of us using Ja…

> every dynamically-typed language has "weird" behaviour around type coercion Do they now? $ irb irb(main):001:0> "0" + 1 TypeError: no implicit conversion of Fixnum into String from (irb):1:in `+' from (irb):1 from /usr/bin/irb:11:in ` ' irb(main):002:0> ^D $ python >>> "0" + 1 Traceback (most recent call last): File " ", line 1, in TypeError: cannot concatenate 'str' and 'int' objects >>> ^D $ node > "0" + 1 '01' >…

I know you know this, but for the GP or anyone else: "Dynamically typed" doesn't mean "strongly typed". Python and Ruby are strongly typed, JS is weakly typed.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#197

Post by always_good »

throwaway13456 wrote: post #128
nawgszy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's just not a terribly good or fast one From everything I've seen, its performance sits just below Java (4x slower, perhaps) on some standard algorithms or tasks, and significantly faster than languages like Ruby, Python, etc.. I never see hate for those languages like for JS, so I'll disregard that. >not terribly good This one never has made sense. What is it missing that makes you hate it so? I think it has rath…

Have you ever used a language like Elixir? After using Elixir, my first thought was "why the f would anyone even use JS in 2018?" That's how poor the design choices of JavaScript are. Not to mention that the name itself is trademarked by the biggest troll (Oracle corporation). After using something like Elixir, you'll even wish if Javascript could be permanently banned from the Software industry for ever. I use Elixi…

Honestly your post just reeks of amateurism.

I used to think the same thing back when I used Clojure + ClojureScript. Hah, what idiot would choose Javascript over my god tier Clojure/Script setup?

Well, one day I actually tried to build a company and my cofounder just couldn't be fucked to learn Clojure. We decided on Node. I was forced to learn how to play nice with Javascript where I learned how to appreciate it.

Nowadays, I have a hard time justifying something like Clojure/Script over Javascript. Same with Elixir. And I am very wary of people who can't spot trade-offs since that was how I used to be, and I was wrong. I just didn't have enough experience.

There is no best. There are only trade-offs. Elixir/Clojure might be a good business decision for your project, but if you can't concede any positives to Javascript, I don't think you have a firm grip. And in the end it's always a business decision, not a technical one.

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#198

Post by titanix2 »

cirgue wrote: post #191
capelio wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I will abandon my skepticism of JavaScript as soon as JavaScript boosters abandon their infomercialesque “millions of people can’t be wrong!” attitude and make a compelling case for the language itself. JavaScript is all we have for web dev which is why it’s so popular. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a fundamentally flawed language, it just means that no one has been able to popularize better solutions because of network…

JavaScript is so good Microsoft created Typescript to avoid dealing with it directly. (edit: wrong parent)

Re: Office 365 is being completely rewritten in JavaScript

#199

Post by jhall1468 »

arghwhat wrote: post #74
nawgszy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's just not a terribly good or fast one From everything I've seen, its performance sits just below Java (4x slower, perhaps) on some standard algorithms or tasks, and significantly faster than languages like Ruby, Python, etc.. I never see hate for those languages like for JS, so I'll disregard that. >not terribly good This one never has made sense. What is it missing that makes you hate it so? I think it has rath…

> (4x slower, perhaps) "4x" is a lot slower, and a lot of things are much worse than this. You have to have deep knowledge of the VM (such as knowing how "hidden classes" work in V8) to be able to get JS close to Java. > so I'll disregard that. You shouldn't. Claiming a JIT'ed language is fast due to being faster than Python, an entirely interpreted language, is like saying a moped is a fast vehicle because it's fast…

> 4x" is a lot slower, and a lot of things are much worse than this. You have to have deep knowledge of the VM (such as knowing how "hidden classes" work in V8) to be able to get JS close to Java.

That's a solid argument for only programming in C and Assembly because they are often 4x faster than anything.

> Most language features, really.

AKA, your preferences are "language features".

> Everything is an object

So you don't like Python. Or Ruby.

> the "Number" type which is totally retarted

Very technical argument there.

> the terrible "prototype" system

So you prefer classical inheritance. Cool. Doesn't mean prototypal inheritance is a bad thing.

None of what you mentioned are missing features, they are personal preferences stemming for your own language preference that differs dramatically from Javascript. I'd start by disassociating your opinionated stances from actual weaknesses in the language, of which there are many, and none of them are what you mentioned.

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