Towards a More Modular Future for JavaScript Libraries

jsmcgd wrote: post #7

The graph of library growth is stunning: http://modulecounts.com/ For all of JS quirks it is clearly getting something(s) very right.

Yeah, it's available in the browser. I'm not even trying to slam JavaScript--I sort of like it for all of its foot-guns, but this is literally the only reason worth considering for its success.

Edit: I like several things about JS. Certainly if it didn't have first class functions, or easy object literals, that would be a pain. Likewise, if it didn't have insane implicit conversions and painful APIs, that would be great. But the good features didn't make JavaScript successful, just like the terrible features didn't kill it.

And Node was a function of JavaScript's ubiquity, not a cause. Having a server side platform will help keep momentum behind the language, but it really happened because JavaScript was already so big.

Re: Towards a More Modular Future for JavaScript Libraries

#9

Post by alanning » Mon, Nov 11, 2013, 3:03 PM UTC

The yui library has an interesting concept of cleint-side modules. They were able to consolidate a lot of their widget code during the rewrite of yui2 to yui3.

I'm also excited to see what the Meteor team comes up with for their v1.0 release. They already have reusable packages for the client and server but currently it's only designed for those using the core meteor framework. Would be interesting to see if what they make could be usable by other clients.

1. http://yuilibrary.com 2. http://meteor.com

Re: Towards a More Modular Future for JavaScript Libraries

#10

Post by thenmar » Mon, Nov 11, 2013, 3:06 PM UTC

hyperpape wrote: post #8

jsmcgd wrote: post #7

The graph of library growth is stunning: http://modulecounts.com/ For all of JS quirks it is clearly getting something(s) very right.

Yeah, it's available in the browser. I'm not even trying to slam JavaScript--I sort of like it for all of its foot-guns, but this is literally the only reason worth considering for its success. Edit: I like several things about JS. Certainly if it didn't have first class functions, or easy object literals, that would be a pain. Likewise, if it didn't have insane implicit conversions and painful APIs, that would be gr…

You don't think it has anything to do with Node?