Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
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Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
1–10 of 14 posts
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#2IT is brutal. You either evolve or you die.
If JS didn't introduce new features, it would be just replaced with the "next big thing" that introduces things.
Arrow functions, classes and promises don't make things more complicated. They are added to make things more readable
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#3IT is brutal. You either evolve or you die. If JS didn't introduce new features, it would be just replaced with the "next big thing" that introduces things. Arrow functions, classes and promises don't make things more complicated. They are added to make things more readable
I sympathize and resonate with the author.
While for me, the JS language features are still manageable. What has outgrown me are the layers upon layers of abstractions used in modern JS app, like React/Redux/... We no longer have a straightforward, plain JS app. To understand the code, we have to 'see through' the thick layers of frameworkds/middleware.
Modern JS app is becoming as ugly as J2EE last time used to be.
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#4This article loses some credibility when citing arrow functions as a complex and “professional” feature. In reality, arrow functions are simple - smoothing over the weirdness and complexity of normal js functions.
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#5This article loses some credibility when citing arrow functions as a complex and “professional” feature. In reality, arrow functions are simple - smoothing over the weirdness and complexity of normal js functions.
Well said. If he thinks arrow functions are too much to learn, then he is just unwilling to learn anything new. Arrow functions have been on js for 4 years.
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#6This article loses some credibility when citing arrow functions as a complex and “professional” feature. In reality, arrow functions are simple - smoothing over the weirdness and complexity of normal js functions.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I disagree. Arrow functions are unnecessary syntactic sugar, and, like much of ES6, feel like the language adding opinionation.
Enterprise codebases I work on are locked to ES5 and scale to 100k+ lines. These codebases cannot afford to layer on every new JS "innovation" and hope to remain consistent across 7+ years (the average lifespan of an enterprise app) and multiple developers.
To assume that this is just because of developer laziness or inability to learn is to ignore the realities of apps built and deployed behind the firewalls of Fortune 500 companies.
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#7IT is brutal. You either evolve or you die. If JS didn't introduce new features, it would be just replaced with the "next big thing" that introduces things. Arrow functions, classes and promises don't make things more complicated. They are added to make things more readable
Well the prototypal inheritance stuff is newish for Java people, so I can see a desire for class based, and then there is that closure private variable thing when it is nicer to just have a private keyword. (I think they use let now?) Still adding features can make things to become bloated. I think one of the targets of language design is balancing everything.
I'm not an expert though.
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#8This article loses some credibility when citing arrow functions as a complex and “professional” feature. In reality, arrow functions are simple - smoothing over the weirdness and complexity of normal js functions.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I disagree. Arrow functions are unnecessary syntactic sugar, and, like much of ES6, feel like the language adding opinionation. Enterprise codebases I work on are locked to ES5 and scale to 100k+ lines. These codebases cannot afford to layer on every new JS "innovation" and hope to remain consistent across 7+ years (the average lifespan of an enterprise app) and multiple develope…
> Arrow functions are unnecessary syntactic sugar
Unnecessary is a matter of taste. Most don't like having to bring out `.bind()` or inside of the function using `let that = this`.
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#9This article loses some credibility when citing arrow functions as a complex and “professional” feature. In reality, arrow functions are simple - smoothing over the weirdness and complexity of normal js functions.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I disagree. Arrow functions are unnecessary syntactic sugar, and, like much of ES6, feel like the language adding opinionation. Enterprise codebases I work on are locked to ES5 and scale to 100k+ lines. These codebases cannot afford to layer on every new JS "innovation" and hope to remain consistent across 7+ years (the average lifespan of an enterprise app) and multiple develope…
It’s pretty well accepted by this point that normal functions in JS get a lot wrong. Inconsistent creation styles, weird hoisting rules - and lets not forget the fact that they don’t bind this, which itself is probably one of the top ways to cause a bug in vanilla JS. Each of these are great ways to trip up developers in JS, both amateur and expert. Arrow functions fix them all.
I’m not saying that your 100k loc code bases can’t be built without them. Obviously, once a language is turing complete, then everything is possible. But certain language features tend themselves to create bugs at a higher rate than others because they confound the expectations of even the most experienced developers. Functions are such a feature.
I’m sure your 100k code bass works fine now - but I wonder, if you look through the commit logs, just how many bugs were caused by some of the inconsistencies and strangeness I mentioned above, and I wonder how much of that time and those bugs could have been obviated had you moved. Probably a decent amount.
Re: Please Keep JavaScript Dumb
#10This article loses some credibility when citing arrow functions as a complex and “professional” feature. In reality, arrow functions are simple - smoothing over the weirdness and complexity of normal js functions.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I disagree. Arrow functions are unnecessary syntactic sugar, and, like much of ES6, feel like the language adding opinionation. Enterprise codebases I work on are locked to ES5 and scale to 100k+ lines. These codebases cannot afford to layer on every new JS "innovation" and hope to remain consistent across 7+ years (the average lifespan of an enterprise app) and multiple develope…
Just because you are locked into the enterprise troglodyte mindset doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to remain living in the past.