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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)

#51

Post by tabtab »

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…

Re: It's easy to forget, but for years after its introduction JavaScript didn't work well.

And STILL doesn't, at least for anything non-trivial. New browser brands or version often "break" a lot of libraries and code. It's not really JS's fault: HTML wasn't meant to be emulate real desktops, and shoehorning it to do so has made a giant tangled multi-layer mess.

Browser standards should be split into three focus areas:

1. DOC: Document-oriented for text display and editing. It would be similar to existing browser but with more word-processing-like features. [I removed "read only"]

2. GUI: Mouse-centric stateful GUI markup for data-oriented "productivity" CRUD applications.

3. ART: charts, games, music, and movies.

The one-size-fits-all "standard" mostly failed (job security aside), time to split and focus. Let's admit we f!!! up as an industry.

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

#52

Post by keithnz »

jbob2000 wrote: post #2

Ok, but what did people actually think about it? These are just quotes from high-up business people, they're trained to never say anything negative.

it was something to do very simple things to enhance websites usability. I don't really remember anyone particularly liking it. It was something you tended to learn as little of in a very reluctant way.

More exciting was things like Java applets or Flash. I did a bunch of stuff with Java applets and was quite impressed in 95-96 when java first came out. I wrote some simple 2d games (falling block puzzle games) which got semi popular. No way to do that in the js world at the time.

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

#53

Post by Polylactic_acid »

tabtab wrote: post #51
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…

Re: It's easy to forget, but for years after its introduction JavaScript didn't work well. And STILL doesn't, at least for anything non-trivial. New browser brands or version often "break" a lot of libraries and code. It's not really JS's fault: HTML wasn't meant to be emulate real desktops, and shoehorning it to do so has made a giant tangled multi-layer mess. Browser standards should be split into three focus areas…

The problem is most pages need to fall in to 1 and 2. Wikipedia is a document website but it also has editing features and it also has interactive mouse things like the hover previews.

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

#54

Post by majormajor »

btilly wrote: post #34

JavaScript 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…

> Along the way, Microsoft demonstrated the power of their browser by doing everything that they could to encourage people to write web applications that would only run on Internet Explorer. Which, of course, only ran on Windows. One of the things that they did was write web versions of Microsoft applications using various Microsoft extensions.

IE ran on Mac but, in a super-fun fashion, wasn't exactly the same IE, IIRC.

There was a period, pre-Camino (Mozilla fork before Firebird/Firefox for Mac got good), pre-Safari, where IE was the single best browser for Macs, yet still wasn't as good as IE on PC...

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

#56

Post by underwater »

tabtab wrote: post #51
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…

Re: It's easy to forget, but for years after its introduction JavaScript didn't work well. And STILL doesn't, at least for anything non-trivial. New browser brands or version often "break" a lot of libraries and code. It's not really JS's fault: HTML wasn't meant to be emulate real desktops, and shoehorning it to do so has made a giant tangled multi-layer mess. Browser standards should be split into three focus areas…

Websites don't exist in neat silos. Web technologies like JS aren't perfect, but they haven't failed be any stretch of the imagination. What other platforms are still alive and evolving decades after their creation?

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

#57

Post by tabtab »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #53
tabtab wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: It's easy to forget, but for years after its introduction JavaScript didn't work well. And STILL doesn't, at least for anything non-trivial. New browser brands or version often "break" a lot of libraries and code. It's not really JS's fault: HTML wasn't meant to be emulate real desktops, and shoehorning it to do so has made a giant tangled multi-layer mess. Browser standards should be split into three focus areas…

The problem is most pages need to fall in to 1 and 2. Wikipedia is a document website but it also has editing features and it also has interactive mouse things like the hover previews.

Good point. Perhaps I shouldn't have said "read only" in #1. Just plain "document centric", including editing of documents and text.

There will always be some overlap, but that doesn't entirely diminish the value of focus. It may be possible for a given window or panel to select which focus-standard it uses to make mix-and-match a bit easier.

A given "starting" browser, typically the document-oriented one which will contain menus and lists (such as an intranet) could be configured to select the user's or org's desired GUI and Art engine. And each "engine" will contain a minimal common sub-set, mostly around existing HTML.

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

#58

Post by technion »

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…

Back when I first played with Javascript I don't think anyone even used the name. Tutorials were all about "DHTML", where you were building "Dynamic HTML" by writing Javascript to move items around.

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

#59

Post by tabtab »

underwater wrote: post #56
tabtab wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: It's easy to forget, but for years after its introduction JavaScript didn't work well. And STILL doesn't, at least for anything non-trivial. New browser brands or version often "break" a lot of libraries and code. It's not really JS's fault: HTML wasn't meant to be emulate real desktops, and shoehorning it to do so has made a giant tangled multi-layer mess. Browser standards should be split into three focus areas…

Websites don't exist in neat silos. Web technologies like JS aren't perfect, but they haven't failed be any stretch of the imagination. What other platforms are still alive and evolving decades after their creation?

VT-100, IBM 3270 terminals, X-Window, Tk, Qt, Oracle Forms (with some caveats).

And just because "web" more or less works doesn't mean we should stop trying. Web UI's for typical CRUD are expensive to build and maintain compared to 90's IDE's. Yes, I realize it made deployment simpler, but programming has at least doubled for the same feature set at the average shop. (There are exceptions, I know, I'm talking average.)

If somebody can justify "it must be that way", I'd like to see the logic. I'm highly skeptical. We just accepted our CRUD Rut as an industry because it's good job security, not because it's efficient. That's somebody else's bill. A good GUI-over-HTTP standard would make a boatload of dev problems float away. I really miss state, for one; it was a good thing. Oh Darling State, I surely miss thee, wherefore art thou? Jetsons tech was yanketh from my finger, and replaceth with Flintstone fiddle diddleth.

(And why are my posts getting bad scores? I don't get it. Ask first, and then neg.)

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

#60

Post by jiofih »

billziss wrote: post #38

I wrote my first website in 1995 and started using Javascript in 1996 (only I think it was called Livescript back then)? I was not impressed. On the client side I would use it for very few things and when I tried the server side version I decided that I would rather stick with Perl and CGI. Although I did not like Perl, I could get things done with it. (Oh, I just remember: also Cold Fusion!) My opinion of Javascript…

Why do you hate it? It’s one of the friendliest languages in current use, a nice mix of OO and FP, with top-notch tooling everywhere, and incredible performance for an interpreted language.
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