A new client will supersede JS and the browser.
Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
11–20 of 33 posts
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#12Ecmascript 7 or Ecmascript 8 should not be called "JavaScript", my proposal: - remove "Script" - replace "Java" with more accurate term (how about Harmony ?)
Well, ECMAScript isn't called JavaScript, it's called ECMAScript. So there you go!
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#13post-Javascript era is still Javascript.
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#14It will...
- make it easier to use multiple processors
- use a new type of DOM designed for web app GUIs which can be translated as necessary back to our current DOM
- have built in version checking for its interpreter/JIT
- make it easier to manage memory usage
- have a module system
- be highly specialized towards the web and web app development
- eg. built in language components that make communicating with the web server easier
- be messy - people will be trying to fix everything anyone thinks is difficult/wrong about Javascript and modern web development
- be easier to implement in the browser
For the immediate future, I see Mozilla sticking with ECMAScript and Google sticking with Dart and trying to make it like the language defined above. Google will likely eventually build Dart into normal Chromium and Chrome and build a plugin for Firefox, which nobody will use. Others will build a Dart VM using asm.js to make Dart work efficiently within Firefox. Any successful new browser languages will be able to compile back down to Javascript, although after a while they will be buggy as the Javascript stops getting as much maintenance.
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#15Ecmascript 7 or Ecmascript 8 should not be called "JavaScript", my proposal: - remove "Script" - replace "Java" with more accurate term (how about Harmony ?)
Well, ECMAScript isn't called JavaScript, it's called ECMAScript. So there you go!
ECMAScript doesn't flow as well as JavaScript though.
How do you pronounce it, anyways? E-C-M-AScript? Ec-maScript? EczemaScript?
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#16the better question is: what will be the next platform? there will be high momentum for change when the underlying platform changes, with todays platform it's just too convenient to compile to C or compile to javascript. how will platforms evolve? I'd say it will be a language that is parallel to the core and only sequential in edge cases, because thats what the underlying platform (processor, graphics card) is evolv…
Good question, but I think the angle of the language is not the best way to answer it. "Killer app" prevails, and that's the story of Javascript. Take a killer platform, feature it with a poorly designed language, or even a combo of 3 more or less objectionable languages (HTML+CSS+JS), and it'll win no matter what.
I think that from the user perspective, one gets from Internet nearly everything one wants in terms of content. The new frontier, I believe, is interoperability. That is the possibility to make it work together and in smart ways all of our electronic devices, from the tiniest (e.g. wristwatch) to the biggest (e.g. TV set, car), anywhere any time. So I predict the next platform shift will be initiated by a large consumer electronics manufacturer.
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#17> Javascript looks a lot like "the new C" ... > Something will come someday that will supersede it. What has superseded C? Nothing. Many things are built on and around C and it is no longer the only choice. I see the same future for Javascript. It will forever be the "low-level" browser based language.
it's hard to say if none or many have superseded C. It's really a hard point, and I don't mean to troll about that.
It's a question of perspective. If you're looking for a total control and great performances, nothing has superseded C. If what you want if a faster development and feature release cycles, many have.
I'm definitively not against C, and definitively not against JS. But C used to be the language for every purpose, and now it's JS. History repeating I guess...
I agree with you on the "low-level browser based" point, but the reach of JS is way broader than that.
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#18It will... - make it easier to use multiple processors - use a new type of DOM designed for web app GUIs which can be translated as necessary back to our current DOM - have built in version checking for its interpreter/JIT - make it easier to manage memory usage - have a module system - be highly specialized towards the web and web app development - eg. built in language components that make communicating with the we…
So basically: more features to JS, but JS still.
I guess that if we want to have something after JS, that will come either with: * more standardized languages, with native in-browser VMs, as Google is trying to do with Dart. * get rid of the browser.
The latter is way more contraversive, but I like it nonetheless. The less contraversive version is: the end of the browser as we know it.
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#19First, I'm going to assume you're talking about just the Web, and for that matter, just the Web frontend, because that is the only domain in which one can even pretend that Javascript is the "end of history". Outside of that domain Javascript remains barely a blip, Node notwithstanding. The end of Javascript dominance looks like the following:
Step 1: Ship asm.js to every browser.
Step 1.5: Do a complete job of binding asm.js to all browser features. (My impression is that right now it doesn't do DOM manipulation, for instance.)
Step 2: Define a serialization of asm.js that is more like a traditional binary bytecode.
Step 3: Everybody compiles to that bytecode. No JS is in sight. Language diaspora slowly follows. Benchmarks start flying; JS, optimized as far as it can possibly be, still can't beat out more statically typed languages, though it only matters for the most performance-sensitive applications.
This is by far the most likely outcome at the moment, in my opinion. I'm not advocating or celebrating this (or necessarily upset about it, either), just observing the current landscape.
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#20the better question is: what will be the next platform? there will be high momentum for change when the underlying platform changes, with todays platform it's just too convenient to compile to C or compile to javascript. how will platforms evolve? I'd say it will be a language that is parallel to the core and only sequential in edge cases, because thats what the underlying platform (processor, graphics card) is evolv…
This is precisely where my thoughts led me, but by a different path:
Javascript has become widely popular for 3 reasons (IMO): * it's standardized * it's easy (yes, it is, period) * it's f*ing included in each and every browser, and its rise followed closely that of the web.
Moreover, the fact that Adobe came with a more powerful yet proprietary VM (namely, Flash) forced evolution of Web standards (JS included) so they could live on. That's Darwin 101.
Every use of JS outside the browser comes from developers willing to have the same ease of use out-browser than they had in-browser. But JS, as popular as it is, is not yet as popular outside of the browser than it is inside of it. Stop looking at the Web ecosystem and dive into the industry, you'll see.
What will happen to JS if we kill the browser? Or what will come out that will kill the browser? And will it have an impact on JS?
The bond is yet very tight between those two pals, don't you think?