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JavaScript at 20

brendaneich.github.io

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Re: JavaScript at 20

#171

Post by JDiculous »

manish_gill wrote: post #157
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

14paninta replied to this, but their comment's dead (shadowban?) - anyway, I'll repost it here and respond to it. > What does that even mean? It's nonsensical. What it means is that the situation with browsers is not much different from the situation on native platforms. CPUs support one language, the browser supports one language. And yet I don't see anyone complain about CPUs only supporting one language, because y…

> What it means is that the situation with browsers is not much different from the situation on native platforms. CPUs support one language, the browser supports one language. And yet I don't see anyone complain about CPUs only supporting one language, because you can compile anything to it. The same is true for JS, so why do people complain? Because we don't write assembly ourselves. Unless we are doing micro optimi…

If you write in Coffeescript or Clojurescript, you're not writing the "assembly" yourself. It's a perfectly valid comparison, and JS being a high-level language doesn't change anything.

Re: JavaScript at 20

#172

Post by robocat »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #34
aikah wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish JavaScript "committed a teenager suicide" and we finally got a more sane language for the web. While javascript has obvious flaws, nobody would ever agree on what a sane language would be. I would also say that, personally, I think that how the DOM is implemented is itself the biggest pain point of web development, not really javascript.

Lua is a sane ECMAScript in many ways.

Except that Lua and the Lua libraries are not strictly defined. Lua would be a fine choice if we were all to use for example only Microsoft Lua ;-)

Seriously, there have been a large number of compatible ECMAScript implementations, which still astounds me because that is no easy feat.

Re: JavaScript at 20

#173

Post by stickperson »

iyn wrote: post #137

If you're interested in learning ES6 basics in 20 minutes, this is a great starting point: https://github.com/lukehoban/es6features Check out this repo, if you have a "little more" free time: https://github.com/ericdouglas/ES6-Learning To be honest, I used to dislike JS not so long ago - it was hard to debug, I had to use strange conventions to write OO code etc. But after learning more about the ES6, react/flux, nod…

What other resources did you use? I'm slowly working my way though Programming JavaScript Applications.

Re: JavaScript at 20

#174

Post by stusmall »

izolate wrote: post #69

JavaScript is like English. It incorporates the best parts of other languages. Starting from Java, you can now see the clear influence of Python in ES6/7 with generators and string templates. I think this is JS's greatest asset.

"We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." --James D. Nicoll

Re: JavaScript at 20

#175

Post by yxhuvud »

macspoofing wrote: post #38
bitL wrote: post #18

I wish JavaScript "committed a teenager suicide" and we finally got a more sane language for the web. It's startling how much energy is spent to work around its bad design every day and it's not getting any better, people are just getting used to it (which is akin to voluntarily agree with having most of one's brain blown off). Even seeing Brendan showing off that he hacked the language in 10 days makes me sick to th…

>I wish JavaScript "committed a teenager suicide" and we finally got a more sane language for the web You got it. ES6, ES7 are making JS look better and better.

That is not a suicide though, but rather the process of growing up.

Re: JavaScript at 20

#176

Post by Guvante »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #81
M8 wrote: post #8

I just wish the best language would win, not the accidentally ubiquitous one. And giving a real choice of language would been even better.

> And giving a real choice of language would been even better. You have a real choice of language! You can use any language you like, and compile to JS. Or are you going to complain that x86 CPUs provide no "real choice of language", offering only x86 assembly?

Unless you have all of the optimizations available to the lowest level you are restricted which is why people complain about "only JS".

There are no optimizations missing from x86 so complaining about it is pointless.

Especially given the improvements in sandboxing having a more powerful underlying language could improve things (note that this doesn't mean it needs access to the API of the underlying OS, which is where Java got itself in trouble).

Re: JavaScript at 20

#177

Post by robocat »

hinkley wrote: post #56
bitL wrote: post #18

I wish JavaScript "committed a teenager suicide" and we finally got a more sane language for the web. It's startling how much energy is spent to work around its bad design every day and it's not getting any better, people are just getting used to it (which is akin to voluntarily agree with having most of one's brain blown off). Even seeing Brendan showing off that he hacked the language in 10 days makes me sick to th…

I struggle with a couple different tools that were developed in weeks or a couple months or on a plane ride. Every time these guys brag about how quickly they put together the first version I just want to say to them, "yeah, we can all tell. And every day we suffer for it."

I think Brendan is trying to apologize for those mistakes, a brave face on the embarrassment of 20/20 hindsight, mixed with some pride in the parts he got right.

He is now spending a huge amount of time trying to fix his mistakes, so perhaps he suffers more than most...

Re: JavaScript at 20

#178

Post by WorldWideWayne »

swsieber wrote: post #155
arbsn wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that someone needs to have a solution in order to observe that there is a problem. The resources available to an individual for creating and reasoning are finite, and as long as one is able to give good reasons why they know that there is a better way, "there is a problem" may still be valuable information.

If it wasn't widely know that Javascript is a problem, then merely observing that it's a problem instead of trying to provide a solution would be useful. But it's a widely known problem and so complaining does nothing useful. Essentially, at this point in the game, complaining is useless rehashing of a beaten horse.

I'm fairly certain that complaining works, even if it's not constructive. When enough people complain about something over and over, it builds pressure to change. So I say keep complaining folks!

Re: JavaScript at 20

#179

Post by brlewis »

bla2 wrote: post #167

Every single presentation of Brendan has this "I made this in 10 days" thing, super annoying. JavaScript is a great example how your career can go pretty well if you're good at selling what you're building, even if it's not very good. This isn't meant as a "JavaScript sucks" type of comment, but as a "being good at presenting your work is really important" type of comment. Too many really strong engineers aren't good…

I recommend Toastmasters, its Competent Coummunicator program, and the Advanced Communicator manual for Persuasive Speaking.
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