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It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

javascript.tm

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Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#121

Post by lowercased »

ndiddy wrote: post #74
suyash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is I belive the JavaScript creator wtnted to latch to Java's popularity to called it JavaScript and now both Java and JavaScript are owned by Oracle and they want the name but not want to change is to ECMAScript, it's real official name.

If you read the original JavaScript press release ( https://web.archive.org/web/20020808041248/http://wp.netscap... ), it's mainly intended as a language to write glue code so Java applets (where the real application logic would go) can interact with a webpage: > With JavaScript, an HTML page might contain an intelligent form that performs loan payment or currency exchange calculations right on the client in response…

Happenstance, but that press release you linked to was December 4, 1995 - exactly 30 years ago today!

Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#122

Post by [deleted] »

rokob wrote: post #117
crazygringo wrote: post #114

Should have [2024]. The "postmark" says Sep 16, 2024. And the list of updates at the top says they've since filed a petition to dismiss the trademark, and Oracle has filed to dismiss the petition.

I think it is posted because of the update on Dec 2nd 2025 where Oracle responded with a request to dismiss. Edit: I read that date shockingly wrong, their response was February of 2025 so this is pretty old.

[deleted]

Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#123

Post by tolerance »

homebrewer wrote: post #23

Imagine if this effort was spent on solving more pressing problems, like the recent yet another security kerfuffle, or the overloaded maintainers whom everyone depends on but reliably fails to support. Call the language JS, everyone already understands it, it's used on all the logos because it's short, we already another popular language with a very compact name (Go, which is harder to look up without mangling its na…

Whether the JS community can organize to address those issues may in fact depend on the real and social capital that this seemingly auxiliary campaign has the opportunity to effect.

Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#124

Post by GoblinSlayer »

heretia wrote: post #99
embedding-shape wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it's a way better name (much less confusing, given that this lang doesn't have anything to do with Java anyway). Probably if we were in the early 2000s this could have been a battle worth fighting. But considering we're in 2025 and probably more people are aware of JavaScript than Java at this point, even when you're deep in enterprise-land, I'm not sure it'd be less confusing. Anyways, you're about two dec…

> probably more people are aware of JavaScript than Java at this point All the same, I probably get as many calls from recruiters to fill Java positions as I do JS positions. I've never used the former, and explaining it is always awkward!

For normal people Java is a short way to say JavaScript.

Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#125

Post by muvlon »

exabrial wrote: post #61

Why in 2025 can we not ship a statically typed high performance language for browsers?

I'm a huge fan of statically typed languages, but shipping statically typed code as an artifact seems like it loses all of the advantages.

What does it matter to the user whether they get a runtime or a "compile time" error in their invisible devtools console? To them, the page simply doesn't work.

Static languages make sense when compilation happens at dev-time, where the actual devs can respond to the diagnostics. So it's far better to develop in a statically typed language, compile it ahead of time and ship that to the user. Which is exactly what people do now with wasm.

Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#126

Post by user3939382 »

GaryBluto wrote: post #57
karel-3d wrote: post #35

They now have GoFundMe where they are soliciting donations for a discovery phase of a patent trademark cancellation request. They have just 50k USD out of 200k USD they are raising. (No idea if that's appropriate; from the outside, it seems like a lot of money, but also they are fighting Oracle which has unlimited money, so, yeah) For some reason it's not linked in the page itself. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-…

[flagged]

Powerful orgs have powerful enemies. There are many people who want to see Oracle out of the way. They’re not more powerful than the rest of the industry put together.

Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#128

Post by someguyiguess »

siwatanejo wrote: post #3

I actually think that people should rather use EcmaScript name instead of JavaScript, because it's a way better name (much less confusing, given that this lang doesn't have anything to do with Java anyway). I wish Oracle started suing people to force everyone to use the better name.

EcmaScript is an awful name. It sounds too similar to eczema or ectoplasm. Ugly name.

Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#129

Post by brabel »

mikepurvis wrote: post #95
ndiddy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the original JavaScript press release ( https://web.archive.org/web/20020808041248/http://wp.netscap... ), it's mainly intended as a language to write glue code so Java applets (where the real application logic would go) can interact with a webpage: > With JavaScript, an HTML page might contain an intelligent form that performs loan payment or currency exchange calculations right on the client in response…

The language now called Groovy would have been JavaScript if the name wasn’t already taken.

Haha completely agree, it is the "scripting language" made in the image of Java! It's a great language by the way!

Re: It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

#130

Post by someguyiguess »

crazygringo wrote: post #110
wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EcmaScript just sounds icky.

I still cannot read it without immediately seeing a contraction of eczema.

Yes! I said this same thing in a separate comment! It sounds like Eczema Script
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