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Enough with the JavaScript already

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Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#71

Post by ebbv »

chewxy wrote: post #53
ebbv wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah JavaScript has problems, so do all programming languages. JS has some particularly egregious ones, but the abuses and problems the slide complains about are not a symptom of a defect with JavaScript. They would be the same problems with any other language being used by incompetents.

I like to think of it this way: Some languages allow you to shoot yourself in the foot easier than other languages, given the context and environment. Abuses and problems precisely show Javascript's defects. The more easily abusable a language is, the more defective it is. A lot can be said about familiarity with the language. Many examples in wtfjs.com boils down to (mis)understanding the language itself. Let's call…

You are 100% wrong. C allows you to shoot yourself in the foot much more easily and much worse than JavaScript. JS is a far more "safe" language to code in.

No pointers, no memory allocation. Yeah JS isn't typed but the problems that you get into with that are nothing by comparison.

And again, I'm not saying JS doesn't have problems, it does. But the problems this presentation is complaining about are not results of flaws in JS they are results of incompetent developers.

So he's complaining about the wrong thing by complaining about JS.

It should be titled "I wish incompetent people wouldn't try to do things." And we'd all agree but then consultants like him would be out of a job.

Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#72

Post by cronin101 »

Slackwise wrote: post #26
chii wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mistake, perhaps, is that people (us) are trying to shoe horn an application into a Document object model - its in the name for christ sakes! Document! Not application object model!

Not just the DOM, HTTP as well. We're shoehorning state into a stateless system, and inventing new crap like WebSockets to overcome limitations of a system designed for document retrieval. The web has turned into the biggest hack ever.

Like how TCP is a hacked-together impression of reliable transfer over an unreliable medium?

Nothing wrong with layering approaches, but the problem is knowing where to place the borders in order to give clarity at every level.

Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#73

Post by stefantalpalaru »

coob wrote: post #36
nbevans wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Objective-C and Java rule 2013 since web apps are not as pleasant to use on mobile." Or with some MVVM, Xamarin and some C# or F#... write once, compile for all mobile platforms. Never having to once touch the nastiness of Obj-C or Java.

What's nasty about Obj-C?

The syntax and the APIs.

Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#74

Post by amorphid »

marknutter wrote: post #51
netmute wrote: post #44

Enough with the no-context-attached slides already. Seriously, if you don't have a recording of the talk, or a transcript, at least provide an article or something.

I will never understand the utility of posting slides from a talk online without the audio.

I found the slides to be quite informative.

Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#75

Post by wiremine »

ebbv wrote: post #50
chewxy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not however, preclude the possibility that the tool is in fact a bad tool, and that the tool is bizarrely the only tool we have. They say poorly skilled people blame their tools, and that highly skilled people who know their tools well, will know how to use it well. That being said, see that circular saw over there that will occasionally bounce and cut off its user's fingers? I'm not gonna use it, no matter h…

Yeah JavaScript has problems, so do all programming languages. JS has some particularly egregious ones, but the abuses and problems the slide complains about are not a symptom of a defect with JavaScript. They would be the same problems with any other language being used by incompetents.

I don't think the article is knocking JS, it is knocking the over/miss use of JS on the client side. So, yes, any other language would have the same problem, but to take this as another "JS suckzzz" article misses the point.

Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#76

Post by rartichoke »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #46
rartichoke wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An issue with Dart is it does not support IE 8. IE 8 still ships with Windows 7 and it is quite popular. It's not reasonable to throw away all IE 8 traffic just to get Dart's features.

Does Dart support Chrome version 2 [0] or Firefox 3.0.8[1]? Since IE8 stems from that age, March 2009[2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Release_history [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_release_history [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_8 It's not reasonable to support an outdated browser version with an inferior Javascript engine, or to single out Internet Explorer as a browse…

I wouldn't mind if Dart didn't support older versions of Chrome or Firefox because that's just much different than IE 8.

Most people who are running IE 8 are random non-technical folks who are using the browser that came with their OS. They don't even know what "internet explorer" is.

There are probably a small sub-set of people who have Firefox 3.x because their brother's uncle's nephew installed it once like 5 years ago but I honestly don't mind losing these people as potential customers because it's such a ridiculously small %. I also feel like these are the type of people who would be more than capable of upgrading if they kept seeing messages like "your browser is old as time itself, upgrade or find someone who knows how to do it for you!" through friend/family assistance.

I can't justify throwing away almost 10% (IE 8) market share for Dart and the idea of supporting multiple versions of the app is just too much work for too little return.

Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#77

Post by naradaellis »

minopret wrote: post #33
exizt88 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with the DOM? (Sorry if this is a stupid question)

What's wrong is what the DOM is and what it isn't. The DOM is the Document Object Model data structure along with the parametrized routines that operate on that data structure. It exposes every way in which the apparent simplicity of XML is far from the reality. Then the operations that it provides do little to manage the complexity. They are only relatively "primitive" operations, like getters and setters for the da…

I don't necessarily disagree with you that there are problems with the DOM API. However, would you rather that higher level APIs were designed by standards committees, or would you rather they were worked on and "de facto" standardized in the wild - the situation we have now. The situation we have now is a case of worse is better I think.

Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#78

Post by stiff »

ebbv wrote: post #40

JavaScript is a tool. Once it becomes trendy idiots will always abuse a tool. It's not JavaScript's fault people are bad at web design and development. If it wasn't fucked up JavaScript these people were contacting you about it'd be something else, be glad you have a job.

We are all abusing the technologies originally developed for hypertext documents (HTTP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript) for building applications. If you today started working on a set of standards for handling what people currently build on the web proposing those technologies would be completely ridiculous, so ill suited are they for this job. And JavaScript is probably the worst of all, it is designed badly enough that there isn't even a standard way of defining modules or classes so you end up connecting shit structured in a 100 different ways.

Re: Enough with the JavaScript already

#80

Post by tommorris »

ebbv wrote: post #40

JavaScript is a tool. Once it becomes trendy idiots will always abuse a tool. It's not JavaScript's fault people are bad at web design and development. If it wasn't fucked up JavaScript these people were contacting you about it'd be something else, be glad you have a job.

Java is a tool too. But the years and years of people inflicting bad Java desktop UIs on the world might have been avoided if we had been more critical of it rather than going with what's cool and hip and new.

I think in a few years time, we'll look back on the current trend of client-side-all-the-things just as we now look back at Flash intro pages, pop-up ads and all that shit.

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