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The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

fly.io

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Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#21

Post by mathgladiator »

ghusto wrote: post #14

> Nobody Writes JavaScript Any More This is how "delightful" it is, and is the reason I'm waiting for it to die. Every couple of years we decide on the 'no no, definitely this time we have it all figured out, trust us, just use X' "solution" to the problem of JavaScript. We have the definative 'this is how you do it', until the next one.

> I'm waiting for it to die

I'm there with ya, but I wouldn't hold your breath. I'm trying to minimize my JavaScript exposure by using streaming, and it's going well enough with a minimal JavaScript "runtime". However, I still find myself with thorny edge cases like "I need a better date/time picker", "color picker", or a drag and drop calendar planner.

I find myself frustrated with the ecosystem, and I'm debating how large the set of exceptions are to my ideology.

Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#22

Post by dgreensp »

I stopped reading after the typo “JavasScript” and then the juvenile tone of “Less that 10 years ago, JavaScript sucked bad.”

I have a positive impression of fly.io overall, I mean they admitted they are still figuring out how to build tech at the level of their ambition and have it be reliable enough, but I might like to be a customer one day.

Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#23

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

ElfinTrousers wrote: post #4
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #3

I wonder how much of this can be blamed on JS being a relatively gentle and forgiving codegen target.

I suspect that if some accidents of history hadn't left JS as the only language you can use to script a Web browser, it would have died off long ago.

What else was there, besides VBscript, or whatever Microsoft was calling it then? Even if we're only talking hypotheticals, at what point would anyone have attempted to release an alternative?

Everything was mucked up well into the 2010s with everyone chasing IE compatibility. And not even 3 years later, Chrome had taken over the world. That's a really brief window for anything to happen.

Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#25

Post by VyseofArcadia »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #23
ElfinTrousers wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that if some accidents of history hadn't left JS as the only language you can use to script a Web browser, it would have died off long ago.

What else was there, besides VBscript, or whatever Microsoft was calling it then? Even if we're only talking hypotheticals, at what point would anyone have attempted to release an alternative? Everything was mucked up well into the 2010s with everyone chasing IE compatibility. And not even 3 years later, Chrome had taken over the world. That's a really brief window for anything to happen.

What else was there? Plenty of stuff! It could have been a lisp, it could have been a flavor of pascal, python was around even if it wasn't popular yet. Thank heavens we didn't end up with a flavor of BASIC, although as you point out it could have happened.

Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#26

Post by davely »

I am a product of a coding bootcamp from awhile back, so JavaScript is really the only thing I’ve ever known in my career (outside of writing some apps in Visual Basic around 2001).

Maybe it’s because it’s the only thing I’ve ever known, but… I like it?

I guess if I hack around on a side project and want to use vanilla JS, it’s the Wild West and there’s no rhyme or reason for anything (and everything looks gross).

But working inside various frameworks have been pretty enjoyable for me.

Side note: there’s also this hilarious video about the… delightful nature of JavaScript from 2012:

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#27

Post by miohtama »

weeksie wrote: post #6

Javascript is this generation's C++. It's a massive language and the only way to stay sane on a project is to agree to use a well demarcated subset of it. Nothing wrong with being C++. The reason JS is so massive and weird is because it's the language that everybody uses, or has to use at some point. Upsides and downsides.

JavaScript, The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford symbolises this well today

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/621qrt/jav...

Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#28

Post by superchroma »

ghusto wrote: post #14

> Nobody Writes JavaScript Any More This is how "delightful" it is, and is the reason I'm waiting for it to die. Every couple of years we decide on the 'no no, definitely this time we have it all figured out, trust us, just use X' "solution" to the problem of JavaScript. We have the definative 'this is how you do it', until the next one.

This. It fucking sucks. I just waded back into it and I hate everything about it. VSCode barely copes, Visual Studio doesn't even try and Rider was the only thing that worked which hasn't helped my mood.

Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#29

Post by dunham »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #11
ElfinTrousers wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that if some accidents of history hadn't left JS as the only language you can use to script a Web browser, it would have died off long ago.

I've been wondering about that lately. What is the rationale for making it necessary to run WASM binaries through JavaScript? Seems like a missed opportunity to not be able to just point a script element at a WASM blob, but I'm sure I'm overlooking something.

When I last looked, it seemed like WASM blobs just take arrays of numbers and return arrays of numbers. No objects, strings, or DOM elements, so I think it'd be tough to do web dev in wasm as it stands. And you need javascript glue if you want anything in the way of side effects.

There is, however, quite a bit you can do in it. TeX has been compiled to wasm[1], it's about 600kb uncompressed 90k compressed (the memory image with latex loaded is about 6MB compressed though - latex is a beast). I think anything computationally intensive would be a good candidate for wasm (it has int64).

1: https://github.com/kisonecat/web2js

Re: The JavaScript ecosystem is delightfully weird

#30

Post by rglover »

> The mind bending parts of this presentation are where he first utilizes use server to implement a client side form action, and then later launches a client side alert from the server using use client. And he closes by saying that this requires new generation routers and new generation bundlers.

No, it just requires a basic websockets implementation and a normal HTTP server. If anyone else like me loves JavaScript but thinks the above line of thinking is bananas, join me on the lifeboat [1].

[1] https://github.com/cheatcode/joystick

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