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Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

pouria.dev

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Re: Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

#11
The only reliable solution to this that I have found is compiling an app into a docker container and ensuring my projects are able to run off a SQLite database.

I then save this to my NAS.

Otherwise literally everything will break.

Running an app that I wrote only 3 years ago will blow up.

Re: Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

#12

> During the past 5–6 years of my JavaScript experience, every time I wanted to go back to any of my projects—from tiny to big, server-side or front-end—there was always a challenge, a problem to tackle or an obstacle to overcome before I can update or sometimes even just run my program. why i moved mostly from writing node cmd tools to using bash. don't need to go on a bunch of side missions every time i run npm ins…

A month ago I found a bug in command line utility I wrote in C# and hadn't touched in 8 years. I checked out the project and opened it in Visual Studio. And it compiled. I fixed the bug and it just worked. End to end it took half an hour. I feel like there is an advantage to libraries and tools managed by adults with long term skin in the game.

Re: Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

#14

> During the past 5–6 years of my JavaScript experience, every time I wanted to go back to any of my projects—from tiny to big, server-side or front-end—there was always a challenge, a problem to tackle or an obstacle to overcome before I can update or sometimes even just run my program. why i moved mostly from writing node cmd tools to using bash. don't need to go on a bunch of side missions every time i run npm ins…

Web has always been about the hot new thing. It was part of why I left-in 2001.

Re: Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

#15
The package you use for testing may cause memory leak problems. The package you use for build may cause memory leak problems. With the new version of the frontend library you use, you can completely change its architecture and decorate it with different nonsense. Welcome to the world of javascript.

Re: Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

#17
post #12

> During the past 5–6 years of my JavaScript experience, every time I wanted to go back to any of my projects—from tiny to big, server-side or front-end—there was always a challenge, a problem to tackle or an obstacle to overcome before I can update or sometimes even just run my program. why i moved mostly from writing node cmd tools to using bash. don't need to go on a bunch of side missions every time i run npm ins…

A month ago I found a bug in command line utility I wrote in C# and hadn't touched in 8 years. I checked out the project and opened it in Visual Studio. And it compiled. I fixed the bug and it just worked. End to end it took half an hour. I feel like there is an advantage to libraries and tools managed by adults with long term skin in the game.

As a counter point: I have simple node scripts, that serve the same purpose to me. And there was also the need to fix something 2 days ago in an 8 year old script. Opened the file, changed the code and running it again. Took 5 minutes and it just worked.

I don't use js because it is the hot new thing, but rather because it is simple. (But I avoid messy and obscure npm repositories wherever possible for example.)

Re: Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

#18
My experience is pretty similar for my projects but I think generally we shouldn’t point too many fingers. When it comes to public projects, I’ve found a lot of trouble regardless of its JavaScript-proximity. I think we’ve been blessed by a growing ecosystem of projects that are clean to build, and eschew problematic dependencies. Try building anything Linux and C related and you’re worse than JS because now you need to modify libraries across your operating system not just NPM project.

Tonight, I tried simply compiling an example super-high-profile project that recently reached 1.0 (Matter protocol impl). It took me an hour of chasing down Linux dependencies to build on my Ubuntu server, while I gave up on building on my mac altogether after comments on issues suggested sym-linking various homebrew packages around my system.

We are still new at experiencing docker-packaged projects, and there’s few heavily used tools that work well. Many big companies have solved this problem internally, but not out in the wild. HN has often discussed GUIX or NIX systems, but I’ve yet to see a “real” open source project that uses anything but make/docker or language specific tools (npm, cargo, etc).

Re: Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

#19

> During the past 5–6 years of my JavaScript experience, every time I wanted to go back to any of my projects—from tiny to big, server-side or front-end—there was always a challenge, a problem to tackle or an obstacle to overcome before I can update or sometimes even just run my program. why i moved mostly from writing node cmd tools to using bash. don't need to go on a bunch of side missions every time i run npm ins…

Why learn cmd and bash when you can just learn js? Easier to maintain 1 language than 1+.

My software in js from 7 years ago still works.

Re: Programs are dead, and JavaScript has killed them

#20
post #10

In the early 2010s, the industry was dominated by mature and stable ecosystems, such as Python/Django and Rails. Then Node came about, and when it was still extremely immature, it got a ton of attention as an army of front-end devs started to flock to it. "We are backend engineers now too!". Doesn't work that way. Node has been basically re-learning all the lessons learned a long time ago, and many lessons it didn't…

This was a relatively mild but necessary rant.

> re-learning all the lessons learned a long time ago

Because this is the same crew that sailed on the ship that sang the "over 30 is over the hills" song. In fact, wasn't our own /u/pg cheering this 'very wrong idea' of completely discounting experience on the side?

Surprise, surprise. Experience actually matters.

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