JavaScript is the future...maybe
blog.jonathanchannon.com
JavaScript is the future...maybe
1–10 of 46 posts
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#2Author has some good points. What I don't like is this superficial "the future" label. Hopefully, "the future" won't be about just one technology. In my opinion, it should be more about using the right tool for the right job. Even though I'm a big fan, it's obvious that JavaScript is not the answer to all of you casual programming questions, let alone the very complex ones.
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#3As far as JavaScript goes he's not off the mark. The thing that saddens me a bit is that it's yet another post about a particular language/technology/thing.
No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context. This is as true for Android as it is for Visual Basic and Arduino.
While this is obviously my personal opinion, I think the industry as a whole might benefit a lot more from a post that discusses the pros and cons of building a solution that targets say, the web, a phone, tablet and a desktop. And how such a solution might do authN and authR, synchronise data using store/forward, work in an offline scenario (aeroplane, underground, Gobi desert...).
Talking about specific technologies in such a context is useful. It is even more useful when considering environmental factors such directories, monitoring software, privacy, advertising and so on.
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#4As far as JavaScript goes he's not off the mark. The thing that saddens me a bit is that it's yet another post about a particular language/technology/thing. No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context. This is as true for Android as it is for Visual Basic and Arduino. While this is obviously my personal opinion, I think the industry as a whole might benef…
>No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context. This is as true for Android as it is for Visual Basic and Arduino.
Disagree, strongly. Progress exists. The languages of today really are better than the languages of 20 years ago. Android really is better than winCE (and this is speaking as someone who was a fan of winCE when it was the best thing available, and spent a fair amount of effort compiling apps for it), not just in some situations but overall.
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#5As far as JavaScript goes he's not off the mark. The thing that saddens me a bit is that it's yet another post about a particular language/technology/thing. No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context. This is as true for Android as it is for Visual Basic and Arduino. While this is obviously my personal opinion, I think the industry as a whole might benef…
No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context.
I don't really buy into this reasoning. If a given language is worse than every other in almost every context (the "global" context, if you will), then it's clearly an inferior language relative to the others.
JavaScript does exhibit this. It has exactly one thing going for it: it's the only scripting language widely available in web browsers.
Aside from that, it's inferior to most other languages in almost every respect. Its syntax is mediocre. Its semantics are inconsistent and often outright confusing. It's missing critical features that are essential for anything but the smallest-scale development. Its performance is only just somewhat poor today, due to a huge amount of effort from Google and others, otherwise it was downright abysmal in its early implementations. Its libraries are more bandages for its numerous problems, rather than tools that empower developers. The supporting tooling is quite bad (Chrome's developer tools or Firebug don't compare to a real debugger, for instance). The community leaves a lot to be desired, especially given the high amount of ignorance and the extremely bad "advice" that is passed around so often by its members.
We shouldn't be politically correct when it comes to technology. Some programming languages are worse than others, and we shouldn't shy away from saying this. JavaScript is an inferior language, like it or not.
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#6I'm baffled by people's obsession with finding The One Programming Language. Would the world be better off if everyone spoke and thought in only English?
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#7As far as JavaScript goes he's not off the mark. The thing that saddens me a bit is that it's yet another post about a particular language/technology/thing. No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context. This is as true for Android as it is for Visual Basic and Arduino. While this is obviously my personal opinion, I think the industry as a whole might benef…
>No language/technology/thing is better than another. It may be better than another in a particular context. This is as true for Android as it is for Visual Basic and Arduino. Disagree, strongly. Progress exists. The languages of today really are better than the languages of 20 years ago. Android really is better than winCE (and this is speaking as someone who was a fan of winCE when it was the best thing available,…
winCE today is far superior to Android when creating an app that relies on Active Directory.
Similarly, whilst LINQ may represent progress in that it makes querying XML, an object model or SQL Server easier, it's terrible when the requirement calls for a complex data model that bears little resemblance to the in-memory representation required by the app.
That's what I mean by context.
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#8I'm baffled by people's obsession with finding The One Programming Language. Would the world be better off if everyone spoke and thought in only English?
I agree with your sentiment, but there is still a lot to be said for being able to use the same language on the server and client within a single application. I'm currently investigating ClojureScript for this very reason.
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#9I'm baffled by people's obsession with finding The One Programming Language. Would the world be better off if everyone spoke and thought in only English?
I share the same opinion.
I cannot understand why some developers fail to understand that we need different tools optimized for different types of tasks.
It is like they are afraid of learning.
Re: JavaScript is the future...maybe
#10I'm baffled by people's obsession with finding The One Programming Language. Would the world be better off if everyone spoke and thought in only English?
I don't think natural languages are a very good analogy for programming languages.
But the world where everyone can speak English, is certainly a better place.
(disclaimer: English is only my third language)