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Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#41

Post by jillav »

No you shouldn't be ashamed.

Most of the people I met who denigrated javascript with a blazing hate didn't fully understand its underlying concepts. They were trying to use it like C or something else. Which can lead to frustration.

You should take pride in being good with your tool, understanding how it's designed and how to use it to build awesome stuff.

And yes, it's always a good idea to expand one's skill set. Handling javascript like a boss is one of those skills that a today's programmer can be proud of.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#42

Post by drinchev »

Although most of the replies will be "No, because ", what is more important is to find the reason that suits yourself. You can of course find :

- Libraries that makes it efficient ;

- Plenty of styleguides / do / don't rules which makes it tidy ;

- TypeScript, where JS becomes statically typed ;

- Find beginners in any other languages, although "full of beginners" is actually positive, rather than negative.

- You can feel like a real pro if you write C / C++, but you will rarely be hired to make a REST API with that stack and you will not be hired to create a web app with it. So your statement might be more accurate if you say "Web development is downplayed as a newb", which is obviously wrong. Sure I would not recommend to write a database based on NodeJS or a search engine, or a space shuttle program, or a ... you name it, but you can't write with anything else ( at least serious ) than JavaScript or something that compiles to JS, for web development.

- Cool is also relative. I was writing Perl for 6 years, before I run out of job prospects and switched to NodeJS.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#43

Post by flavio81 »

jacob019 wrote: post #32
erikpukinskis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ES6 is the worst thing that ever happened to JavaScript. JavaScript's one best attribute was that it would run on any device. No longer true. It's second best attribute was a simple threading model. Promises and async wrecked that. The third best attribute was it was easy to learn. But in ES6 there are twice as many control structures to learn, with no added power. =>, class, const, etc. They just add more things to…

Love it or hate it ES6 is here to stay. I for one love it.

Still no integers,

no strict typing,

no sane module system.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#44

Post by triplee »

No. You shouldn't be ashamed of ANY language or technology, as long as you feel it's appropriate for doing whatever problem is put in front of you.

Also remember that at various times, PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl, COBOL, ColdFusion, literally anything made by Microsoft, Java, and countless other languages that solved plenty of interesting problems and both led to people getting paid but also improving and creating other things have been laughed at.

As a converse, plenty of people have made absolute garbage in any number of open source frameworks, "sexy" languages du jour, etc. either because they were working alone and didn't think they needed help or what they were working on wasn't remotely suited to the tool.

Ignore the haters. It's usually gatekeeping coming from lack of confidence and fear of real competition due to years of poor attitudes in our industry on what makes a "real programmer".

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#45

Post by alan_wade »

I got into programming because I want to make cool stuff, not because I want to contemplate the transcendent beauty of pure functions and elegant code.

JavaScript is what enables me to make stuff I couldn't make with the same amount of time/effort using any other tool I came across.

Do I wish I could do the same stuff using Racket? Sure, I guess. But in the world I live in, JS is the best tool I could find for doing what I want.

Also maybe it's just me, but I've been programming for 5 years, and I haven't actually ever felt that frustrated or inadequate when programming JS, I like it no less than python.

I got used to looking down on JavaScript as a "bad" language from reading snarky comments made by people who, I suspect, also jumped on the hate train because they've heard others talking shit about it. I'm not a computer scientist, maybe there are some legitemate reasons to dislike JS, but I don't think they're serious enough to warrant all the hate it gets in programming community, I'm guessing it's mostly a social phenomena.

At least personally I haven't run into things that make me dislike it, I have a lot of fun using it.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#46

Post by jacob019 »

flavio81 wrote: post #43
jacob019 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love it or hate it ES6 is here to stay. I for one love it.

Still no integers, no strict typing, no sane module system.

ES6 imports works well. I've been working on a project that uses them extensively and it's really improved the organization and structure.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#47

Post by drivingmenuts »

sick_of_web_dev wrote: post #24

It's not as bad as PHP but yeah JavaScript or rather the community around it is largely made up of sub-par web developers (you, oh dear reader are of course the exception). Obviously you will not find as many clueless people in say embedded software development or even electrical engineering as these require a certein set of requisite skills and theory whereas every idiot can call themselves a web developer. But yeah…

As a PHP programmer, I should probably resent some part of your answer, so consider it pro-forma resented.

OTOH, I get paid to work with PHP, so really, I don't worry about what other people think of it.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#48

Post by xtracto »

15 years ago that was PHP...

A language is not something you should be ashamed of. You should learn more than one though, so that you understand the advantages and disadvantages of different paradigms and implementations.

Should you be ashamed of loving your hammer? NO, but you should be ashamed of using your hammer to unscrew screws.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#49

Post by gitgud »

sick_of_web_dev wrote: post #24

It's not as bad as PHP but yeah JavaScript or rather the community around it is largely made up of sub-par web developers (you, oh dear reader are of course the exception). Obviously you will not find as many clueless people in say embedded software development or even electrical engineering as these require a certein set of requisite skills and theory whereas every idiot can call themselves a web developer. But yeah…

@sick_of_web_dev you sound a little biased against Web Developers ;)

Re: Ask HN: Should I Be Ashamed to Love JavaScript?

#50

Post by gitgud »

randiantech wrote: post #6

Javascript has evolved enough during these years to a point that is no longer a "joke". Theres yet some kind of inertia from past, when JS was basically a form validation language, but current state of language is a complete different story.

Interesting, I guess it's still haunted by its past...
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