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Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#191

Post by Roboprog »

jlebrech wrote: post #169

because it blows. we need a full IDE, Language, Library combo for better development.

There are IDEs that support JS.

Use JS to do FP (functional), rather than OOP, and it totally rocks. Refactoring stuff works pretty well with nested functions - function names have to be "real" (if avoiding eval()), as opposed to properties that can be provided as associative array string indices (not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what you need).

I'm not a script kiddie, either - I have been programming since the early 80s when I was earning my CS degree. I'm not scared of dynamic scripting languages

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#192

Post by AtheistOfFail »

rhizome31 wrote: post #141

Because nobody has yet invented a compelling way to write JavaScript applications, so people keep trying. We're still waiting for the Ruby on Rails of frontend development. I'm not saying Ruby on Rails is the best backend framework (I don't use it anymore), but when it came around everybody understood that it was getting something right. It popularized a new model for server-side web development that all other commun…

How about Sails? It's pretty damn good for Javascript as a Rails alternative, even uses some of the same context.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#193

Post by niftich »

inimino wrote: post #177
rhizome31 wrote: post #141

Because nobody has yet invented a compelling way to write JavaScript applications, so people keep trying. We're still waiting for the Ruby on Rails of frontend development. I'm not saying Ruby on Rails is the best backend framework (I don't use it anymore), but when it came around everybody understood that it was getting something right. It popularized a new model for server-side web development that all other commun…

Plenty of people (including me) took one or two looks at RoR and dismissed it, too. I don't think it was the slam-dunk you're making it out to be. React seems to be doing pretty well these days, but it is too soon to say if it is going to dominate the field.

On the contrary; Rails was a massive innovation because it proved that opinionated, reasonable defaults ("convention over configuration") is how most people actually want to write software. For a CRUD app, Rails was a shining beacon of light, because it allowed you to crank one out in mere hours, instead of days of fiddling with repetitive glue code that you would've had to write instead in literally any other web framework of your choice. It meant average coders could be productive instead of overwhelmed, and competent coders could move on to different projects faster.

The GP post has a point. Almost every MV* JS framework starts from scratch because they all believe their slight variation of the paradigm is better than everyone else's, but the greater scheme of things they are more similar than different. When one comes out with a framework that in earnest changes how JS development is done -- and achieves some staying power -- things will be different from the myriad of near-equivalent-but-totally-incompatible choices.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#194

Post by Roboprog »

mahyarm wrote: post #13
alasdair_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind sharing why you consider node.js and other server-side javascript tools irrational?

Unless your project is small (like under 10-20k lines), why use node when you can use a typed language? Javascript is a mess and if I'm server side and using something dynamic, I might as well use something nicer like ruby or python.

Why use an OOP language when you can use an FP one?

I must have missed the memo that proved that Java / C# / C++ / Simula 67 are the one true path to productivity.

Async I/O is clumsy on the server side, though.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#195

Post by jlebrech »

Roboprog wrote: post #191
jlebrech wrote: post #169

because it blows. we need a full IDE, Language, Library combo for better development.

There are IDEs that support JS. Use JS to do FP (functional), rather than OOP, and it totally rocks. Refactoring stuff works pretty well with nested functions - function names have to be "real" (if avoiding eval()), as opposed to properties that can be provided as associative array string indices (not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what you need). I'm not a script kiddie, either - I have been progra…

we just need it to be as easy as xcode

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#196

Post by jacquesm »

smonff wrote: post #167
chadgeidel wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a (perhaps apocryphal) story about the art class which was separated into 2 groups - one group worked on a single project all semester and the other group worked on a new project every day. People in the group that worked on a project every day produced better work than people in the "single project" group. My google-fu is weak, so I cannot find the reference. I'm not suggesting that the Javascript ecosystem…

Maybe because art art school you always do the same thing: so doing it continually for one semester or restarting projects on shorter times, the final thing would be quite the same, except that if you work on more small projects, you will maybe learn faster.

And, your art is yours. No artist is able to do huge harm to a whole industry by releasing some crappy painting with terrible design choices. They're only harming themselves and/or their reputation.

There is a parallel though: bad art is weeded out over time, the good stuff remains. In software it is quite similar, the good stuff has staying power, the bad stuff will be forgotten soon enough. The average half-life of a typical javascript framework is quite telling in this respect.

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#198

Post by mook »

qznc wrote: post #119
roblabla wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain what the coincidence was ? There are alternatives everywhere (ActiveX, flash, java, visual basic IIRC). And yet here we are, with JS. I believe JS came here because it actually is the best language we have had in the web. It's so easy to throw shit arround, but let's be honest with ourselves, this isn't purely out of luck.

JS is the only language integrated into the browser and the DOM. Netscape rejected other languages (Python, Perl, TCL) because of syntax, so Brendan Eich disguised Scheme into Java syntax and hacked up a prototype in 10 days. Today, Javascript is sooo interwoven with the DOM in browsers that it is near impossible to separate them. Google planned to do this for Dart, but gave up. If they had done this and other browse…

There were noon-JS languages on the web, though; in particular, VBScript was a thing in the (at the time) most popular browser. I understand that at one point there was a third-party Perl implementation too.

Unfortunately there wasn't a good way for the other browsers to implement it. Or perhaps fortunately, depending on your point of view…

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#199

Post by pmarreck »

First of all, Angular sucks (/opinion), so that's a bad example.

I think it's due to the fact that Javascript is so terrible at any scale, yet is so pervasive, that working with/around it becomes this deer-in-headlights thing you can't ignore... since most HAVE to work with it in some form, doing any Web stuff.

I recommend Elm, as a way around Javascript's problems while still allowing you to run in browsers: http://elm-lang.org/

Re: Ask HN: Why is everything in JavaScript changing so fast?

#200

Post by wiredearp »

btbuildem wrote: post #109

Because the ecosystem is mostly built by people with no formal education and little experience -- they're literally re-inventing everything from the history of computer science.

Or perhaps because the ecosystem is built by people with much formal education and industry experience applying traditional computer science paradigms to a stack with bizarre and unconventional tooling, not realizing it was made by other experienced backend developers attempting to fix the same imagined problem in a domain they don't understand. The outcome would be the same, so it's hard to say for sure.
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