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Wow, apparently JavaScript was 100% great and there was nothing at all negative about it ever, according to people in tech!
According to CEOs and other businessmen making statements for the press hype machine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jquery was invented and became massive for decades because it made js basically suck less.
jQuery was invented for basically two reasons, neither of them about making JavaScript suck less. 1. Introduce a "chaining" API. 2. Paper over the differences between how browsers implemented the DOM, with events being the big issue. Note that the DOM is not JavaScript and JavaScript is not the DOM. The DOM is a language-agnostic API for manipulating markup-based documents.
This obviously lends the question, given it's criticism back in the day, which PL is the next javascript?
Do you mean "heavily criticized, with significant flaws, but might grow into something with massive use"? Go, maybe? Or is it not flawed enough and not criticized enough? Or is it already used too heavily?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who was doing web development at that time (since '96 actually), oddpost did have an impact on perception of JS and what was possible among developers. Yahoo buying them was kind of a big deal at the time, and every developer I knew who was involved in web stuff had seen it or at least heard about it. The biggest drawback at the time was that it was window/IE only, and when gmail was released, google made…
Never heard of oddpost, and pretty sure most devs at the time had never either. I do remember Gmail really being a wow moment with respect to Javascript and specifically AJAX though.
Because the way I remember it, technical people hated it with a passion, from its design to its implementation.
In fact, the most popular JS projects have always been to avoid writing ES5, its DOM API, or depending of one of its implementation:
- scriptaculous: we hate even the basic types, so we monkey patch our own code into it.
- jquery: don't use any of the language paradigms and use ones from Lisp and Haskell. Avoid "this". Don't touch the DOM. In fact, don't code, just make a few calls and pass parameters. And we rewrite the whole damn browser API to avoid incompatibilities.
- GWT: write JS from Java.
- underscore and co: let's rewrite typeof, the equality sign and array manipulation methods. And provide an stdib for god sake.
- coffeescript: we like Python and ruby but must do JS.
- React: HTML in JS now please. And magic DOM. Oh, and prototyping is horrible, lets use classes. And we strongly advice immutability, but do what you please...
- webpack and babel: ES6 and 7 are not here yet, but ES5 is so bad we will setup an entire ecosystem dedicated to make believe they are. Also pretend import works like in other languages.
- typescript: ok, we were wrong, ES7 is not enough. Not nearly enough. Please make intellisense works.
Now, in 2020, JS is finally not so horrible to work with. You can use map(), () => and "..." and fake namespaces. Which is amazing to access the crazy cool plateforms that the modern browsers and the web are.
So I guess, in a way, this quote from the AOL guy was true.
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…
Meanwhile, you can use any language on the server yet many of us including myself use Javascript. I'd say modern Javascript is easily one of the best languages.
And of course next to JS, you have C#, Asp.Net, Ruby, Python, and Go.
I'd say that given that:
- a lot of people only know JS (like designers)
- JS has a monopoly on the front end and is the only language that can be used on the front and back
- JS has existed for as long as Java (C#, Ruby and Go are way younger)
- there are JS materials everywhere given the web popularity
- the web is the most popular plateform in the world
The fact, as a freelancer going from company to company, I see so little JS on the server compared to other languages tells a lot.
I note that all those ecstatic quotes are from executives. Because the way I remember it, technical people hated it with a passion, from its design to its implementation. In fact, the most popular JS projects have always been to avoid writing ES5, its DOM API, or depending of one of its implementation: - scriptaculous: we hate even the basic types, so we monkey patch our own code into it. - jquery: don't use any of t…
I note that all those ecstatic quotes are from executives. Because the way I remember it, technical people hated it with a passion, from its design to its implementation. In fact, the most popular JS projects have always been to avoid writing ES5, its DOM API, or depending of one of its implementation: - scriptaculous: we hate even the basic types, so we monkey patch our own code into it. - jquery: don't use any of t…
I don't understand the comparison between jQuery and lisp/Haskell, can you elaborate?
$("foo").stuff().bar().res()
And for Lisp, jquery provided error handlers instead of relying on native try/except.
Of course, it's more inspired from it than the real thing, but it's far from any JS paradigm of the time. Remember that JS didn't even have map() and the only place you used your first class functions was to setInterval. Plus the joke is funnier that way :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand the comparison between jQuery and lisp/Haskell, can you elaborate?
For Haskell, when doing: $("foo").stuff().bar().res() jQuery feels like the list monad, if you see chaining as similar to bind and $() not so far from return. And for Lisp, jquery provided error handlers instead of relying on native try/except. Of course, it's more inspired from it than the real thing, but it's far from any JS paradigm of the time. Remember that JS didn't even have map() and the only place you used y…
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…
Meanwhile, you can use any language on the server yet many of us including myself use Javascript. I'd say modern Javascript is easily one of the best languages.