It’s time to free JavaScript (2024) • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by breakingrules3 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:32 PM UTC

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

#332

Post by jagged-chisel » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 8:57 PM UTC

garyrob wrote: post #262

msgilligan wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

POJO is one of my favorite acronyms. Along with POTS and COTS. POTS = Plain Old Telephony System COTS = Commercial Off-The-Shelf

> POTS = Plain Old Telephony System I worked for NY Telephone for years in the '80s, and it was referred to there as "Plain Old Telephone Service" not System. Not that it's a big deal at this point!

My understanding is that the Service was provided by the System.

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

#333

Post by morshu9001 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 9:03 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #187

serial_dev wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's a valid example, isn't it? Someone just wanted to share their Rust + JavaScript knowledge with people, and they got a cease and desist. It's clearly not ideal.

Given they did not change the name, it suggests the legal challenge had failed. So why do we care?

Legal risk alone discourages people. But also, I don't really care.

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

#334

Post by morshu9001 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 9:08 PM UTC

mid90sahsan wrote: post #322

wengo314 wrote: post #10

i wish we instead dropped js for something vastly more sane.

What would that be?

Seriously JS is the best choice for the things it's commonly used for

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

#335

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #293

amelius wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I'm going to assume that adding -Script to a trademarked name allows me to use that name freely.

Unless that suffixed version is itself already trademarked, like AppleScript.

iPhoneScript should be fine though?

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

#336

Post by morshu9001 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 9:10 PM UTC

Alifatisk wrote: post #171

rpodraza wrote: post #72

I'd rather start a completely new, better language for the browser.

Like Dart and the Dartium browser

Dart looks ok, but looking at the Dart equivalents of JS examples like {foo: 1}, I'd rather use JS

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

#337

Post by morshu9001 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 9:13 PM UTC

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #79

exabrial wrote: post #61

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

Developers always on their high horse, if after years of trying different options it didnt happen, maybe that means it's not what the world wants or need?

I don't want static typing in a web language. This is something people getting dragged from Java and C++ want. JS and Py got popular without it.

Also there's TS if you really want it

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

#338

Post by tkel » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

collinmanderson wrote: post #203

The last time this was brought up, "WebScript" was mentioned as a possible alternative name. (Like WebAssembly, WebSockets, WebRTC, etc.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45297066

Great idea. Much better than "ECMAScript"

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

#339

Post by bigfishrunning » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 9:28 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #236

shagie wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From days of old... Invoking Applet Methods From JavaScript Code - https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/applet/in... and Invoking JavaScript Code From an Applet - https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/applet/in... Aside from the "Java is cool, name everything Java" in the early days - there was scripting between the browser and the applet using a language named JavaScript.

Eh, JavaScript wasn't the originally chosen name, it was LiveScript by Eich. I've never seen a justification for the name from anyone in the know, other than Eich's musing that Netscape wanted the "cool" factor. That "cool" factor was also why the original task of embedding scheme into the browser turned into a more C/Java-esque flavor.

Oh man what a world it would be if browsers just interpreted scheme (or something close) instead of javascript

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

#340

Post by mixmastamyk » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 9:39 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #319

Random nerd note: The history is slightly wrong. Netscape had their own "interactive script" language at the time Sun started talking about Java and somehow got the front page of the Mercury news when they announced it in March of 1995. At the Third International World Wide Web Conference in Darmstadt Germany everyone was talking about it and I was roped into giving a session on it during lunch break (which then had…

Was the "interactive script" LiveScript or something else?

---

Edit: The above makes it sound like there was another scripting language:

> they had a small problem which was that this was kind of a competitor to their own scripting language.