Based on those comments, it seems that a lot of vendors saw JavaScript as an integration opportunity to sell their database software. It's interesting that it didn't work out that way and JS today mostly interacts with databases via intermediary server software.
What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
191–200 of 241 posts
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#192It was also the scripting language for Netscape's web server
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#193Earlier 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.
So in other words:
1: to fix js chaining
2: to fix js compatibility
Ergo to make js suck less.
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#194I 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…
JavaScript has a very high learning curve. But it becomes great once you are fluent. When manipulating the DOM it kinda sucks that you can't just monkey-path attributes, you have to use el.setAttribute. The DOM is also very slow. But the DOM do a lot of work - ever tried to make your own UI framework from scratch only using low level GUI calls? z-index, styling with CSS, screen-reader support, etc.
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#195JavaScript is perfect example of Worse is Better http://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html Early JavaScript sucked bad. It sucked small planets. As PG said 2005 about Web 2.0. http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html >Basically, what "Ajax" means is "Javascript now works."
I don't think it is. If JS had any sane competition, I think it would have lost. By some weird conjunction of events, it landed a monopoly on the most amazing plateform in the world. PHP is a good example of Worse is Better, because it won over the competition, despite its flaws. HTML vs xHTML as well. Bash, maybe? But JS didn't win. It was the only one there.
What? JS had loads of competition back then. VBScript, Flash, and Java applets, just to name a few ways to get interactivity on a browser.
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#196I 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…
[deleted]
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#197It is pretty clear none of them have any clue what JavaScript actually is. These are "endorsements" from "partners" trying to get on the hype train. They just want to ensure everybody that this new thing is a perfect fit for their product.
"JavaScript allows Internet applications to easily connect to production databases such as CA-OpenIngres"
"We plan to integrate our automatic document indexing and abstracting technology to leverage the power and functionality of JavaScript. "
"Illustra’s unique extensible Object-Relational architecture makes it an ideal intelligent queryable store for content management applications using Java and JavaScript objects"
"JavaScript is a great way to get cross-platform scriptable access to databases and move the resulting data into Macromedia Shockwave"
"The creation of a general, standard scripting language for Java development will accelerate adoption of this new, exciting technology for delivering dynamic, live content to the consumer."
You could replace "JavaScript" with "Machine Learning" or "Blockchain" in the above quotes, and they would make just as much sense.
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#198JavaScript is a fascinating example of Microsoft successfully getting a giant own goal. The promise of the web was cross platform applications that required no installation. Microsoft's fear was that cross platform applications would make the operating system irrelevant and reduce Windows lock-in. Both Sun (with Java) and Netscape wanted Microsoft's worst fears to happen. This was the era of Embrace-Extend-Extinguish…
Back before XmlHttpRequest, you could "poll" for server information using a hidden IFRAME. XmlHttpRequest + JSON formalized this type of data transfer.
Was going to mention this, it was pretty popular for those of us building corp intranet applications at the time. Not a lot of people used it for generally available web application but there where a few. Several of the web chat applications of the time used it extensively.
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it is. If JS had any sane competition, I think it would have lost. By some weird conjunction of events, it landed a monopoly on the most amazing plateform in the world. PHP is a good example of Worse is Better, because it won over the competition, despite its flaws. HTML vs xHTML as well. Bash, maybe? But JS didn't win. It was the only one there.
What? JS had loads of competition back then. VBScript, Flash, and Java applets, just to name a few ways to get interactivity on a browser.
"sane" is the keyword here.
The alternative all depended on non technical users with slow connections to install the runtime.
Js code was guaranteed to work anywhere, and with no requirements, giving it practical monopoly.
Re: What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 (2017)
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn't even need first class functions for setInterval. setInterval also accepted a string!
Wow, I just tried: setInterval('console.log(1 + 1)', 1000); And it works. It's a big eval(). Stealing this for my next JS training, beginners always have a hard time with callbacks, so it's a good first step to actually explain the benefits of callbacks.
[deleted]