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The JavaScript Problem

haskell.org

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Re: The JavaScript Problem

#101

Post by Aardwolf »

jurassic wrote: post #31

The people who hate javascript the most are the ones who wish it was something else. I used to be one of those people. Once I decided to accept it as it is and read a few top books on the language to learn the "javascript way", my life got a lot better. It's really not that bad. I actually like it a lot, but there are still a lot of ignorant people who will look at you as if you're not l33t enough to know that foo la…

> verbose function syntax

I didn't agree with that one myself. I mean, ok, now we have C++11 and can just type [](){} for inline lambda functions, but before C++11 you needed a huge amount of boilerplate to pass a function to something. JavaScript's way to just type "function something" inline was so non-verbose and convenient compared to that.

So what is it being compared to instead here? Functional programming languages?

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#102

Post by BugBrother »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #64
_delirium wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably wouldn't invent JS if I were tasked with coming up with a bytecode for the web. But how bad is it, on the overall scale of things? I mean, x86 is not a great ISA, and yet has prospered, despite some real nonsense corner cases and an anemic register set. Is JS bad as a bytecode the way that x86 is bad as an ISA, or bad at a different level?

There is a degree to which you can make anything do anything. Using JavaScript as bytecode is actually really easy if you don't care about performance whatsoever. And if you get together a group of smart people who try very hard for a long time, I'm sure you could even get it to have reasonable performance. Especially if the people writing the interpreter are talking to the people writing the compiler. But why would…

I came into this discussion many hours late, but I have to ask: Why are people discussing as if asm.js didn't exist?! It is fast. (It even support integers!)

To me, asm.js looks like a bad kludge -- and a great road ahead, just extend it a little bit over the next decade with the stuff compiler writers will clamor for.

Am I missing something?

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#103

Post by zoomerang »

Kiro wrote: post #97

I'm surprised that lack of module system is the first thing brought up. Is that really such a big deal? It's very much just a nice to have for me and has plenty of third-party implementations if you want it.

It's just another annoying thing on the list of warts with Javascript that make maintain a large codebase a pain in the arse.

Plenty of third party implementations is half the problem. Want to import a module by somebody using a different module format? More pain in the arse!

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#104

Post by Solarsail »

gordaco wrote: post #91
wyager wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My impression of the Haskell community is its full of snobbery and complaining. Probably because the Haskell community is used to having a programming language that is, in and of itself, very good. They complain because they know what they're missing when they have to use inferior tools. >Develop an imagination. Javascript can be wielded very effectively. It's just different. The same can be said of x86 assembly. Th…

>>I feel liberated by not having a strong type system restricting my options. >If you feel restricted by a type system, you're using it wrong. A type system is a useful tool, not an impediment. It only prevents you from doing wrong things. I'm always baffled about how people say that using a dynamic language feels "liberating". I feel completely the opposite; I have to be extremely more careful with a dynamic languag…

Aren't these two equivalent statements? Liberty to do any particular thing, ever, increases the ability to do something wrong. And so requires more caution. That doesn't stop restrictions that would alleviate said caution from being overbearing themselves. (Maybe they aren't always overbearing, either way...)

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#105

Post by briantakita »

WoodenChair wrote: post #25
briantakita wrote: post #23

I accept that I will be downvoted for this. My impression of the Haskell community is its full of snobbery and complaining. This has got to be the 4th javascript ducks post on hn in the past week. I like hearing the positive aspects of Haskell. However, the language x sucks posts are tiresome. Develop an imagination. Javascript can be wielded very effectively. It's just different. I hope that I or someone else wires…

Here's the problem with your post - and it has nothing to do with what you think it does. It attacks two things at once and quite distinctly. On one hand you're defending JavaScript - and that's separate from your attack on the Haskell community. It's just unfocused and confusingly conflated. I'm not going to down vote you, but you need to organize your thoughts a little more coherently if you don't want to get down…

Apologies about the lack of cohesion of my post. It's tough to make posts on a phone.

I have to confess that my interactions with the Haskell community have not been positive as I would like. My development preferences are not respected by Haskell fans. I'm ok with disagreement. However, if I do "defend" javascript, I'm attacked as being ignorant because I don't see things the same way.

My point is javascript can be an amazing experience, and very scalable, if approached in certain ways.

I acknowledge that Haskell is amazing too.

>It's not that it sucks for making a photo gallery, it's that it sucks compared to other languages for making a rich, modern, immersive, large application. They key word there is large.

Very large apps have been made in c. I'm making a fairly large app in javascript. It's been pretty fun. I'm confident that the app im working on can be scaled to be considerably bigger.

A problem is most people try to use techniques that are more appropriate in other languages.

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#106

Post by BugBrother »

gordaco wrote: post #91
wyager wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My impression of the Haskell community is its full of snobbery and complaining. Probably because the Haskell community is used to having a programming language that is, in and of itself, very good. They complain because they know what they're missing when they have to use inferior tools. >Develop an imagination. Javascript can be wielded very effectively. It's just different. The same can be said of x86 assembly. Th…

>>I feel liberated by not having a strong type system restricting my options. >If you feel restricted by a type system, you're using it wrong. A type system is a useful tool, not an impediment. It only prevents you from doing wrong things. I'm always baffled about how people say that using a dynamic language feels "liberating". I feel completely the opposite; I have to be extremely more careful with a dynamic languag…

This is why unit testing took over the dynamic language world more than a decade ago.

And at least in Perl, which have a bit of extensible syntax, you can declare parameter types of methods/functions. That is especially a good idea for external APIs to libraries, etc.

All tools have quirks, which forces a bit of change in how you use them. You have to look at the total sum of these effects. How much extra days will it take to learn? How much will the work arounds cost you? Etc.

Granted, e.g. JavaScript have more weirdness than should be possible -- but is is fast, fun and has lots of use cases.

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#107

Post by masswerk »

briantakita wrote: post #23

I accept that I will be downvoted for this. My impression of the Haskell community is its full of snobbery and complaining. This has got to be the 4th javascript ducks post on hn in the past week. I like hearing the positive aspects of Haskell. However, the language x sucks posts are tiresome. Develop an imagination. Javascript can be wielded very effectively. It's just different. I hope that I or someone else wires…

Just upvoted the post, sorry. ;-)

These rants really seem to be based on the degree of respect some languages are enjoying in a certain community. Take weak typing / type coercion for an example: This is a common feature of scripting languages of the time, e.g.: Perl. I never read Perl being complained on for the same issue, which might well be, because it is a "serious" system language and because you might have to "really" learn it for any advanced use. (Even the boolean testing of int return types in Unix and C could be considered as some kind of premature type coercion.)

Late binding is probably most powerful feature of the language. (The language is built around it.) If it doesn't go with your test suites, considering that both the language and the language the tests are built with are Turing complete, adapt the tests rather than the language. This is a bit like ranting on C not being Logo and for it having other output facilities than a turtle.

Why not just develop in JS -- read: think JS --, for a change?

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#108

Post by camus2 »

ehsanu1 wrote: post #89
camus2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typescript is hard. It's module system is a mistake(it should be module system agnostic,not AMD or CommonJS),and very confusing. The biggest problem is javascript is so dynamic you cant create type definitions for every library outthere and expect the typesystem to work. Typescript is good if you are porting something from AS3/C#/Java to javascript,or if You want to model a complex domain,without touching the DOM api…

Umm, no experience with typescript here, but can't you use the type annotations from the DefinitelyTyped project [1] to avoid everything becoming `any`? There are open source type annotations for all major (and many minor) libraries, including jquery [2]. [1] https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped [2] https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped/tree/master/j...

definetly typed doesnt fix everything,just have a look at the ambient declarations.

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#109

Post by masswerk »

WoodenChair wrote: post #25
briantakita wrote: post #23

I accept that I will be downvoted for this. My impression of the Haskell community is its full of snobbery and complaining. This has got to be the 4th javascript ducks post on hn in the past week. I like hearing the positive aspects of Haskell. However, the language x sucks posts are tiresome. Develop an imagination. Javascript can be wielded very effectively. It's just different. I hope that I or someone else wires…

Here's the problem with your post - and it has nothing to do with what you think it does. It attacks two things at once and quite distinctly. On one hand you're defending JavaScript - and that's separate from your attack on the Haskell community. It's just unfocused and confusingly conflated. I'm not going to down vote you, but you need to organize your thoughts a little more coherently if you don't want to get down…

But by doing so, the post marks a real problem: The critique of JS seems to be mostly based on the prestige the languages is enjoying -- or rather the lack thereof -- in a community. Any of those features is to be found in highly respected languages, too. Most of the rants are about respect and not being willing to respect the specifics of the language. Why has JS to be built to suit test suites and tool chains originally designed for C/C++? Why not adapt those tools for the use with JS? Isn't this, what a universal machine is for? "Sucks" may be an easy answer, but it shouldn't be a general one.

Edit: There are only few high level languages which would adopt to such a wide range of programming patterns like JS does, or which would allow to be redefined by such large an extent. (This is mostly for the much frowned on late binding.) Isn't this rather adorable than awful?

Other reasons, why JS would "suck" seem to be quite deliberately: Curly brackets -- what about C or Java? Semicolons -- In the beginning, JS was critiqued for not requiring them and using them rather as a separator (in the first syntax version). Verboseness -- isn't the lack thereof why APL used to be quite a horror? Type coercion -- Isn't this, what made Perl that useful as a glue-language? The critique is quite à la mode.

Re: The JavaScript Problem

#110

Post by skrebbel »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #80
jnbiche wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that there are probably more "Haskellish" compile-to-JS languages, but the wiki mentioned CoffeeScript and TypeScript. Surely Elm ranks above them in your book? Besides, Fay doesn't have typeclasses, either, and it's mentioned. I wasn't making the claim that Elm was somehow better than those options, just that I was surprised it wasn't included. I've just played around with Elm, nothing serious. You're…

Do not underestimate how powerful and useful HKTs and typeclasses are until you've used them in anger. I have a guide to learning Haskell here: https://gist.github.com/bitemyapp/8739525 You should give it a whirl. Just use PureScript if you're fortunate enough to know alternatives to JS exist :)

Why are you intentionally ignoring half of the parent's comment, twice? You're not contributing to the discussion at all.
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