Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

benjamincoe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 38 posts

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#11

Post by mikepurvis »

hoggle wrote: post #10
BenjaminCoe wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the server-side JavaScript stuff is really slick. APE ( http://www.ape-project.org/ ) runs JavaScript on the server-side, for instance. You basically write a client and server in JavaScript and it uses Comet to push events to the client, rather than a JavaScript client needing to constantly request updates -- a great paradigm, that could lead to much more robust multi-user JavaScript applications.

"Helma" Framework comes to my mind too: http://helma.org/

Has anyone here had experience actually using Helma? How does it compare to other general-purpose code frameworks?

I had it downloaded about a year ago and made a few toy projects, but nothing serious enough to really give it a proper workout. (And I don't have a VPS to actually launch anything on...)

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#12

Post by wvenable »

jonpaul wrote: post #9

I use to hate Javascript. I attempted to build a large enterprise system using ExtJS... I ran into a number of problems. I then realized that I could accomplish the same task using GWT/GXT. It was successful. I still don't like Javascript, but I'm warming up to the idea of embracing it. It seems to me that with the advent of Node.js and document oriented databases that use JSON for their document description, such as…

JavaScript really doesn't seem appropriate for large software. Much of the features (like, for example, prototype inheritance) makes for small code but at the cost of some complexity. Even trying to ensure some measure of public/private data requires a lot of boilerplate code.

Probably adding the necessary features to JavaScript to make it more appropriate for these tasks would ruin it for the things it's really very good at.

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#13

Post by mkramlich »

For all the positives of JavaScript, I still prefer Python. There are a lot of similarities, but I give Python higher marks in a few areas. The first one that jumps out immediately is the lack of requiring "var" in Python variable declarations. What I'd like to see instead I think is Python built-in to every major browser as a default language. And/or make it super easy for users to install runtime plugins for Python, Ruby, etc. that way we're not limited to a particular language in the browser client.

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#14

Post by jackfoxy »

I recently had an epiphany about JS too. I think Crockford's evangelizing and the maturing of libraries (especially jQuery) has awoken many to the fact "JS is what we got to program the client". (I just met someone today at the jQuery conference from FreshBooks.)

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#15

Post by baddox »

mkramlich wrote: post #13

For all the positives of JavaScript, I still prefer Python. There are a lot of similarities, but I give Python higher marks in a few areas. The first one that jumps out immediately is the lack of requiring "var" in Python variable declarations. What I'd like to see instead I think is Python built-in to every major browser as a default language. And/or make it super easy for users to install runtime plugins for Python…

I bet as soon as you attempt to implement a DOM manipulation standard for Python you'd introduce all the same cross-browser incompatibilities as Java has. Also, in many ways Javascript is superior to Python. Closures are the only examples I know of off the top of my head.

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#16

Post by jrockway »

arethuza wrote: post #7

JavaScript has probably become my all time favorite programming language (beating Common Lisp and PostScript). I wonder if anyone has done an OS command line shell with JavaScript as the scripting language - having commands pipe JSON to each other could be rather cool.

Having commands pipe JSON to each other could be rather cool

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#17

Post by jrockway »

wvenable wrote: post #12
jonpaul wrote: post #9

I use to hate Javascript. I attempted to build a large enterprise system using ExtJS... I ran into a number of problems. I then realized that I could accomplish the same task using GWT/GXT. It was successful. I still don't like Javascript, but I'm warming up to the idea of embracing it. It seems to me that with the advent of Node.js and document oriented databases that use JSON for their document description, such as…

JavaScript really doesn't seem appropriate for large software. Much of the features (like, for example, prototype inheritance) makes for small code but at the cost of some complexity. Even trying to ensure some measure of public/private data requires a lot of boilerplate code. Probably adding the necessary features to JavaScript to make it more appropriate for these tasks would ruin it for the things it's really very…

public/private is the most pointless distinction ever invented. Enforced privacy makes reuse nearly impossible.

That said, I don't really think Javascript is all that special. Prototype OO sucks.

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#18

Post by jasongullickson »

I've completed a simular "conversion" myself recently.

After reading "JavaScript: The Good Parts" and with the arrival of things like Node.js I have come over from being a staunch "C as a first language" programmer to learning to not only accept JavaScript, but to embrace it, and the power that comes from becoming proficient in the only programming language understood by both the web browser and server.

Re: Why I'm Becomming a JavaScript Convert

#20

Post by tlrobinson »

arethuza wrote: post #7

JavaScript has probably become my all time favorite programming language (beating Common Lisp and PostScript). I wonder if anyone has done an OS command line shell with JavaScript as the scripting language - having commands pipe JSON to each other could be rather cool.

Lots of people have. Unfortunately they all have different APIs, which we've been trying to fix with the CommonJS project: http://commonjs.org/

Personally I work on Narwhal (http://narwhaljs.org/). All of Cappuccino's (http://cappuccino.org/) build tools are written in JavaScript (and Objective-J) using CommonJS APIs now too.

Also, Narwhal comes with a nifty "json" tool to convert Unixy formats to/from JSON: http://narwhaljs.org/json-tool.html

Post reply on HN