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JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

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Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#61

Post by PopeOfNope »

felixgallo wrote: post #8

One wonders how we get out of this mess. You'd have thought that Microsoft/Google/Apple/whomever would have at least tried to include a better alternative language in their browser by now. What stops them besides inertia?

I'd like a distributed app VM that's completely separated from the browser. Every time I think about this, I'm brought back around to this thought: why not java? Minecraft was a good proof of concept and it shows you can make a complex distributed application using java. So why are we tethering ourselves needlessly to the browser?

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#62

Post by sanderjd »

PopeOfNope wrote: post #57
blhack wrote: post #9

This is absolutely a NIGHTMARE for new developers. People come into the language, and there are what seems like an infinite number of "the only right" ways to do something, all of vary degrees of complexity/usefulness, and all claiming that they are god's gift to computer science. That last part is the part that is most frustrating to me, and it isn't unique to javascript. Google, facebook, yahoo, etc. have all gotte…

I don't think the "javascripters" (whoever they are) are behind all the fragmentation. What we're seeing is caused by a low barrier to entry combined with a larger number of people who want to profit from a lucrative business pattern. That pattern is to create a technology that addresses a grievance (real or imagined), create a community around that technology to help promote it, then sell consulting fees once compan…

I don't think this is a good enough business model to explain so many tools popping up. Firstly, it's hard and expensive to make a tool good enough to become popular. But more importantly (and increasingly), it's extremely hard and very risky to build a community to a critical mass where it can sustain itself, precisely because there are so many tools competing for attention. I think tools pop up despite this difficulty and risk, because people have real itches they're scratching.

Introspectively, despite having many frustrations with my tools, and periodically coming up with ideas for tools that seem at the time like they might improve upon things, I know that my gut sense is not, "wow, I could just code this up, get a community going, and make tons of consulting cash!", but rather, "ugh that seems super hard and likely to result in many hours of unpaid labor, I'll just work around these issues and get back to work".

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#63

Post by felixgallo »

PopeOfNope wrote: post #60
lkrubner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X, Flash, Swing, JavaFX, SilverLight, AWT and more were all attempts to offer a GUI over TCP. The important question is why they all failed. This is a complex issue and many good essays have been written that address parts of the question. Still, I think most of it can be boiled down to 3 things: 1.) some were closed-source and proprietary 2.) some were needlessly verbose, or enforced a workflow that made it difficul…

> My own bet would be that when we finally get such a technology, it will come from the world of gaming, where they already do amazing GUIs, and where they often abandon both HTTP and TCP and use UDP instead. Ever hear of scaleform[0]? [0]: http://gameware.autodesk.com/scaleform

Scaleform is a barely-maintained Flash implementation.

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#64

Post by PebblesHD »

chuckcode wrote: post #29
Xeoncross wrote: post #13

I learned a while ago that it doesn't matter how broken something is if everyone is using it. Humans are incredibly resourceful, if not also short-sighted. Look at PHP, look at Javascript, look at Wordpress, look at email, look at the original jQuery etc...

qwerty keyboard is my favorite example. Designed to solve the key sticking problem when typing too fast but now we're all stuck with a layout designed to be inefficient. https://www.addedbytes.com/blog/dvorak-vs-qwerty/

For all the hype I hear about dvorak and other alternate keyboard layouts, I've never met anyone who could type significantly faster on it than I could on qwerty. This isn't objective in any way but from experience I can't say its any 'better'. As for ergonomics and other peripheral effects, I can't comment as I haven't looked into them.

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#65

Post by agumonkey »

copperx wrote: post #50
agumonkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities try to convey this. My final year was more about project management, technology was one variable and nothing else (one of few values of UML is that it tries to be agnostic, even though hyper c++/OOP centric). And thanks to Sir Turing and his friends, you know you can always solve the problem with whatever language/system you have.

> And thanks to Sir Turing and his friends, you know you can always solve the problem with whatever language/system you have. I'm tired of hearing this. Theoretically true, but infeasible in practice. Try to build an OS in JavaScript and see how long it takes you.

I didn't mean to stretch it, you get the message, do not write an OS in SQL nor a DB in bash, but don't tie yourself to a technology too much either.

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#66

Post by PopeOfNope »

felixgallo wrote: post #63
PopeOfNope wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My own bet would be that when we finally get such a technology, it will come from the world of gaming, where they already do amazing GUIs, and where they often abandon both HTTP and TCP and use UDP instead. Ever hear of scaleform[0]? [0]: http://gameware.autodesk.com/scaleform

Scaleform is a barely-maintained Flash implementation.

Then I wouldn't put much hope in the world of gaming coming up with a GUI solution, then. From what I understand, Scaleform is considered best in breed for cross-platform GUIs in the gaming world.

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#67

Post by wwweston »

blhack wrote: post #9

This is absolutely a NIGHTMARE for new developers. People come into the language, and there are what seems like an infinite number of "the only right" ways to do something, all of vary degrees of complexity/usefulness, and all claiming that they are god's gift to computer science. That last part is the part that is most frustrating to me, and it isn't unique to javascript. Google, facebook, yahoo, etc. have all gotte…

> But my god the cognitive load involved in swimming through all of the "this library literally saves THE WORLD" marketing fluff is intense.

As far as I can tell, this isn't a JavaScript problem -- it's a general problem, and it comes from the fact that creating specific & modest solutions to day-to-day problems often seems to be a worse way to advance your career than creating a tool or library that becomes part of How We Do Things Now™.

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#68

Post by po »

ScottWRobinson wrote: post #51

While there's a lot of truth to this comic, I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing. I think it speaks to the flexibility of JavaScript. Sure, all of the tools and libraries can be hard to keep up with, but I'd rather have lots of community support than none. I have to admit, I was a JavaScript hater for a long time, up until recently when I actually spent time to learn the language. Now its quickly becoming one of…

So, you're saying you've become the guy with the hat. :-)

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#69

Post by PopeOfNope »

sanderjd wrote: post #62
PopeOfNope wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the "javascripters" (whoever they are) are behind all the fragmentation. What we're seeing is caused by a low barrier to entry combined with a larger number of people who want to profit from a lucrative business pattern. That pattern is to create a technology that addresses a grievance (real or imagined), create a community around that technology to help promote it, then sell consulting fees once compan…

I don't think this is a good enough business model to explain so many tools popping up. Firstly, it's hard and expensive to make a tool good enough to become popular. But more importantly (and increasingly), it's extremely hard and very risky to build a community to a critical mass where it can sustain itself, precisely because there are so many tools competing for attention. I think tools pop up despite this difficu…

I think there's a misunderstanding; I'm not saying people profit from the tools. They profit from consulting for companies who have adopted the technology, which is a very, very lucrative field. Just look at the Rails consulting shops.

edit: I just re-read my previous statement and you're absolutely correct in your analysis of what I actually said vs what I meant. I've since changed the post to read "technology" instead of "tool." What I meant to imply was that technologies like React and AngularJS were lucrative, not the supporting tools like gulp, grunt or npm.

> "ugh that seems super hard and likely to result in many hours of unpaid labor, I'll just work around these issues and get back to work".

I agree with you on that score. Unfortunately, unpaid labor on the side is an expectation of startup web development these days. Companies do not want you learning new technologies on the clock. They expect you to do that on your own. They expect you to contribute to and/or run your own open source projects. Just last week, my boss told me straight up that I was expected to make something that the company owns and profits from on my own unpaid free time to further my understanding of one of their core technologies. The "or else" was implied, of course.

Re: JavaScript developers are incredible at problem solving, unfortunately

#70

Post by hkmix »

PebblesHD wrote: post #64
chuckcode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

qwerty keyboard is my favorite example. Designed to solve the key sticking problem when typing too fast but now we're all stuck with a layout designed to be inefficient. https://www.addedbytes.com/blog/dvorak-vs-qwerty/

For all the hype I hear about dvorak and other alternate keyboard layouts, I've never met anyone who could type significantly faster on it than I could on qwerty. This isn't objective in any way but from experience I can't say its any 'better'. As for ergonomics and other peripheral effects, I can't comment as I haven't looked into them.

Well objectively it's less finger travel and more home row use, so it has its merits. The issue is that qwerty is such a de facto standard that you'll run into many layout issues using dvorak.
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