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Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
21–30 of 33 posts
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Eck - muh script. Two syllables, same as java
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#23Js gained wide adoption thanks to favorable comparison on specific traits when compared to other languages.
- ubiquity - lower barrier to entry as far is toolchain setup is concerned. Nothing to install to build a Hello world. - no weird concepts to grasp at first: many commonalities with other languages, meaning you don't start the learning curve with a big step.
I could go on but the gist is that JS is kind of like the pop music of programming languages: easy to like, with room to grow (as opposed to Justin Bieber or Miles Davis who miss one of these traits.)
To the question of what will be the next "buzz" (Js is a buzz, but those have different timelines and emotional loads than "leave Britney alone") the answer is:
Something even easier to grasp and access with a barrier to entry, smoother learning curve and wider applications.
It might even be an abstraction like those of Brett Victor.
I'd say that's not so much the language but what it allows beginners to achieve that is wave-defining.
Development has become mainstream and JS is the Pop Music of our days.
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#24First, 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 bindi…
When I talk about the "end of history", yes, the web is the correct focus to read it.
Yet, companies are demanding the devs to be more than frontend or backend devs. Look at the DevOps movement. JS allows your developers to work on both sides of the network with a single knowledge. It may become more than a blip, though I doubt it could ever takeover the backend or smartcards for instance.
So your point (correct me if I'm wrong) is that we'll be going down from JS to a lower-level paradigm, then "something" will bump and from this diaspora you're talking about, one language will prevail, I guess.
It's interesting to see JS as a high-level language that will force vendors to open VMs to allow more languages that will eventually compile to the same bytecode. Sounds very much like the "Java" part of Javascript :)
I like your perspective of viewing JS as the first native inhabitant of an island called "browser languages". Yet I'll need to think more before I can agree or disagree.
Thanks for the input!
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#25A lisp.
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
-- William FaulknerRe: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#26I'm not sure if you noticed. Bt 50% of the time that i'm interacting with the internet its a native application. Maybe a platform shift is already happening?
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#27A lisp. "The past is never dead. It's not even past." -- William Faulkner
Nice, good quote!
The history keeps repeating, for sure. That's why I like to think of JS as a new C.
How will it repeat this time?
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#28I don't think we're in a position to say. JavaScript is good enough and ubiquitous enough that a replacement will have to be pretty compelling. The only thing I see on the horizon that's actually got a shot at unseating JavaScript... is JavaScript. (EcmaScript 6.)
Whatever replaces JavaScript will have to do the following just to get its foot in the door:
* Run on every browser in use
* No compile/build step required
* Work with browser tooling and debuggers
And it will probably need:
* Familiar syntax
* Work with all significant existing JS tooling, libraries, and frameworks
...and that's before we even get to the merits of the language itself.
My guess, and it's purely a guess, is that massively multi-core processors are the wave of the future, and that pure-ish functional languages are going to be needed in order to program them effectively. So that's my bet as for what will be compelling enough to replace JavaScript. But I'd also guess that EcmaScript will get there first, at least in terms of widespread adoption. Perhaps as a pragma'd subset like "use strict" or "use asm".
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#29I don't think we're in a position to say. JavaScript is good enough and ubiquitous enough that a replacement will have to be pretty compelling. The only thing I see on the horizon that's actually got a shot at unseating JavaScript... is JavaScript. (EcmaScript 6.) Whatever replaces JavaScript will have to do the following just to get its foot in the door: * Run on every browser in use * No compile/build step required…
It's worth noting that ES6 actually does not run without compilation on every browser (and will not for a while) since it introduces breaking new syntax instead of stuff that could be polyfilled. For all intends and purposes it's a new language (it's like C++ to C). So maybe any other superset of JS would have the same chances.
Re: Ask HN: What will the post-Javascript era will be like?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's (probably) another topic, but it seems that FP is the new sexy :D
And the old sexy. Back in the day, UNIX was a piece of garbage and the future was LISP machines, if you asked a lot of people. Nowadays, to similar people, C/Go/Java are garbage and the future is, I dunno, Haskell or something. I like the idea of LISP, I not only aced the SICP class back in college but tutored it, too. I get it. And I wouldn't use a LISP for the majority of the work I do these days, it's just harder…
> And the old sexy. Back in the day, UNIX was a piece of garbage and the future was LISP machines, if you asked a lot of people.
I don't know... it still looks like the future today. Genera [1] was able to do things I can't do even with a lot of effort nowadays with my language/IDE/tooling.