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What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

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Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#141

Post by anthk »

edtechdev wrote: post #90
jackallis wrote: post #82

This obviously lends the question, given it's criticism back in the day, which PL is the next javascript?

Maybe it depends on what's the next platform. C/C++ was sort of a base programming language for desktop apps, javascript for the browser, and Objective C & Java for mobile. Server apps have been a mix of PHP/python/java/ruby/node.js. I guess my 2 wild guesses for the long-term future might be either or both 1) a visual/block programming tool (which perhaps might perhaps be more usable in virtual reality type environm…

So, Smalltalk/Pharo.

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#142

Post by mr_toad »

SoylentOrange wrote: post #76

The article conflates “popular” with “loved”. JS is popular because it’s the only* language in which it’s possible to write browser apps and extensions. The number of people using transpilers for this purpose is minimal. In actual fact, most people try to avoid JS whenever possible, instead using TS or other languages that compile down to JS. Saying people love JavaScript because it’s the most popular is like saying…

> Saying people love JavaScript because it’s the most popular

I’m sure it gets a lot of hate just because of its dominance.

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#143

Post by davidjnelson »

Lol document.write in a table in Netscape 2. Still remember my first experience with a buggy js implementation :-)

My favorite early js story is writing a “life cycle of stars” app in 4 hours in 1997 and getting a full high school semester worth of credit for it :-)

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#144

Post by scarface74 »

pavlov wrote: post #89
carterehsmith wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Microsoft also exposed all of that HTML/JS engine as COM or whatever component, so it could be used by applications other than browser. I remember using Microsoft Money -- personal accounting software -- and it seemed to be all built on that HTML/JS engine.

It’s crazy how Microsoft had all the pieces in place in 2001 to own both the Chrome and Electron spaces. Even Apple was shipping IE as their default browser. By investing in cross-platform IE and making it both the best browser and the universal runtime for desktop-quality apps, they could have had “Windows Everywhere”. Instead they did the exact opposite and folded IE into a component of desktop Windows where it rec…

IE wasn’t “cross platform” though. The rendering engine for the Mac was completely different and ironically more standards compliant and had a more complete CSS implementation than the Windows version.

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#145

Post by scarface74 »

pavlov wrote: post #137
numtel wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had been recently sued for having a monopoly from bundling IE with Windows. The chain of events you describe was in many ways not a choice of Microsoft.

This is a good point, it’s easy to forget about how closely watched Microsoft was by regulators. But IMO it makes it all the more surprising that Microsoft doubled down on the centralized OS+API+apps leverage combo that had brought upon them the antitrust scrutiny, instead of dispersing their influence?

Dispersing their influence where? Windows was all that mattered then. No one cared about the “beleaguered” Mac that was losing marketshare and Apple was close to bankruptcy. No one cared about Linux. It’s not like now where there are four platforms that matter for consumers - Android, iOS, Windows, and Macs.

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#146

Post by hombre_fatal »

TheCycoONE wrote: post #126
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much better if it had gone with Scheme

With scheme perhaps, but the Lua of 1995 was a much more primitive language which didn't even support closures. It had the opportunity to break backwards compatibility and refine itself numerous times - as the defacto language of the web I think lua would have turned out much poorer rather than the web much better.

Lua is pretty terrible in how barebones it is. I don't think anyone on HN who raves about Lua yet complains about JS has done much work with either.

There's a reason it has zero traction beyond embedded application and niche application like Pico8.

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#147

Post by Domenic_S »

SoylentOrange wrote: post #76

The article conflates “popular” with “loved”. JS is popular because it’s the only* language in which it’s possible to write browser apps and extensions. The number of people using transpilers for this purpose is minimal. In actual fact, most people try to avoid JS whenever possible, instead using TS or other languages that compile down to JS. Saying people love JavaScript because it’s the most popular is like saying…

> is like saying people love McDonald’s because it sells the most burgers

Ok I give up, why is this wrong?

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#148

Post by chadlavi »

> “AT&T’s support for JavaScript is more than support for cool technology — it is support for an open standards process. Open standards are and will be as important to the success of the Internet as open connectivity.”

Still true, but ironic to hear a huge telco monopoly say it.

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#149

Post by bfung »

reflectiv wrote: post #10
aazaa wrote: post #5

The release of JavaScript was deeply confusing to me as a developer back then. Java applets and Macromedia Flash were already touted by their vendors as the one true way forward for interactivity. The scripting language released at about the same time seemed like an oddball. It's easy to forget, but for years after its introduction JavaScript didn't work well. It was extremely slow, limiting the complexity of what co…

Complex javascript apps just weren't a thing...hell, it took google writing Gmail (2004) to really show everyone that a large SPA using javascript was even possible. After Gmail...things really started to move in the javascript world...people started to put effort into both the runtimes and the libraries.

It wasn't gmail -- it was google maps that really made everyone look again at javascript. Although MS added XMLHTTPRequest, it took something like google maps that pushed it further than anyone thought at the time to make JS a real thing.

Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)

#150

Post by steego »

mr_toad wrote: post #132
steego wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do deserve some credit for intentionally introducing that feature to the browser as a standard feature, but the notion of fetching data without reloading the page wasn't novel at all. That's what Java applets and plugins were for. I'm also pretty sure they weren't the first to fetch data from the server without reloading, because people were doing all sorts of novel things in the mid-90s with plugins. The reason…

> Applets and plug-ins were so much more capable. Except that they couldn’t alter the DOM, or handle events on DOM elements, the two things that developers really needed (even if they didn’t know it).

So the DOM was introduced in 1998, three years after applets and plugins. In 1995, you could write JavaScript code to dynamically render a page on load using document.write, but updating the rendered HTML was another story. Otherwise, JavaScript was limited to very very simple things.

When DHTML was introduced in '97-'98, the only major browser that had a reliable DOM was IE until Firefox came around in 2002. Netscape tried, but it was buggy to the point where there were no real workarounds to the huge gaps in missing functionality.

As far as 1995 was concerned, applets and plugins looked like the future. Honestly, the web was so new and so inferior to other things in 1995 (Macromedia, WYSIWYG tools, etc.), I think most of us saw HTML being replaced in a few years by a richer clients, applets or plugins.

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