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JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

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Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#81

Post by pcwalton »

simula67 wrote: post #62

> It turns out it’s useful to have a lingua franca for the web. No, I don't think so. Most people do not use JavaScript since it is useful. They use it since it is the only option available on the browser. There is a BIG difference. > Creating desktop apps in JavaScript lets developers choose from a vast range of freely available code libraries and frameworks, which takes much of the grunt work out of coding Lots of…

> Let's just call this experiment a failure

The problem with "just calling this experiment a failure"—why that won't work in practice—is that JavaScript is not a failure. It's extremely successful.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#82

Post by contextfree »

smallnamespace wrote: post #22
catnaroek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much wishful thinking during the second half of the talk, though. Also, while fancy runtime systems can improve the performance of dynamic[0] languages, it doesn't come for free: the price to be paid is the loss of elegance. For instance, a JIT compiler could inline a virtual method that seems not to be overridden anywhere, but if later on it turns out that the virtual method was overridden somewhere, the “optimi…

> How can anyone in their right mind trust a language that requires such dirty implementation tricks to achieve decent performance? Isn't this a rather broad brush with which to paint all JIT language implementations, including Java, C#, and, say, PyPy?

it's interesting that C# has recently moved away from JIT and reflection for client apps (.NET Native), though.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#83

Post by pcwalton »

inputcoffee wrote: post #80
scrollaway wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people do not use JavaScript since it is useful. They use it since it is the only option available on the browser. You're not contradicting what you are replying to. People are using Javascript because it's the only option, but it is useful to have a lingua franca. I just wish that lingua franca wasn't Javascript.

I agree with the first part. The issues of: "utility of lingua franca" and "ubiquity of Javascript" are orthogonal issues. It seems everyone agrees that Javascript would not have been the first choice of language. There is no short argument there, you have to go out and try at least one other language and compare them. However, on the second question, I don't see why it is useful to have a lingua franca. Multiple lan…

Because all of the languages supported by the browser have to interact with the DOM. DOM memory management is incredibly tricky: it will not do to just have "an agreed upon format" to exchange data between such languages. You need all the languages to participate in a single garbage collection regime and to have semantics for interoperability at the object level between all of them, which is a very difficult problem.

Even getting interoperability between JS and C++—what the browsers do to implement the DOM—has been exceptionally difficult, with innumerable security vulnerabilities resulting from this.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#84

Post by zeppelin101 »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #57
niftich wrote: post #40

The salient points of the article: - People are stuffing websites into Electron and packaging it as a native application - HTML/CSS/JS is considered 'hackable' because it's widely understood by today's semi-power-user audience Although the article doesn't say it, this seems to imply that: - Full-native development unique on each platform is considered too much effort, when you can get a cross-platform app with Electr…

JS is safe C with types and pointers stripped from the syntax. I don't get why people don't understand its popularity. HTML lets you put boxes on the screen and CSS lets you paint-by-number(id/name/selector). If you aren't doing any of those things, I am very curious to know what exactly you are doing.

I think people hate the quirkiness of it and the dynamic typing.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#85

Post by halayli »

dragonwriter wrote: post #56
halayli wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're in denial. Javascript is everywhere nowadays. It has become the English of languages. It's not my favorite language but it has improved extensively. No one wants to maintain a web app, mobile app, and desktop app separately.

> It has become the English of languages. I'm pretty sure English is still the English of languages. JavaScript might be the English of programming languages, though.

It doesn't need a lot of thinking that I was referring to programming languages.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#86

Post by smacktoward »

davej wrote: post #74
kartan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HTML/CSS/JS is considered 'hackable' because it's widely understood by today's semi-power-user audience I think that's related to the high fault-tolerance in Javascript. A good developer is good in any language, so she can work with Javascript. A beginner or even a bad developer can make things happen in Javascript, when that is not always possible in other languages. So the entry point level is so low that a lot o…

>> > HTML/CSS/JS is considered 'hackable' because it's widely understood by today's semi-power-user audience > I think that's related to the high fault-tolerance in Javascript. Also, in Electron apps you can access the Chromium Dev Tools directly in the app (unless the app author has disabled it). Chromium's Dev Tools are pretty much the gold-standard for hacking during runtime.

> Chromium's Dev Tools are pretty much the gold-standard for hacking during runtime

... if you don't include any IDE with a built-in debugger.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#87

Post by oblio »

simula67 wrote: post #62

> It turns out it’s useful to have a lingua franca for the web. No, I don't think so. Most people do not use JavaScript since it is useful. They use it since it is the only option available on the browser. There is a BIG difference. > Creating desktop apps in JavaScript lets developers choose from a vast range of freely available code libraries and frameworks, which takes much of the grunt work out of coding Lots of…

> Slightly tangentially though, I wonder if we really really put our mind to it, will we be able to just kill JavaScript ?

Humans that "really wanted to" landed on the Moon, brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, cured polio and brought down Communism.

The real problem is that you'll never get that many people to agree on something like killing Javascript and creating something radically superior (whatever that is). The web ecosystem is proof of the highest level of agreement possible on a wide scale.

And to be honest, what's the alternative? If Javascript dies, we won't get a great new common programming language. We'll get 10 mostly walled gardens with barely any compatibility. Unix vendor wars, post-web edition.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#88

Post by rbanffy »

segmondy wrote: post #27
rplst8 wrote: post #2

I'm not an expert, but the memory required to render the seemingly simplest of interfaces in html/js/css in a browser today seems excessive. Some web sites bring a reasonably powered desktop to its knees. I'm not sure I want this problem on my desktop too. Though I guess this is just one step closer to having METAL. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

See the spotify client, popcorn time, visual studio code. these are javascript. They run great.

Have you checked how much memory they use?

I know we have 8-core laptops with 16 gigs of RAM, but, still, it's excessive.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#89

Post by doublerebel »

sebringj wrote: post #70

More systems like React Native are how JavaScript should be done on the desktop rather than cordova-like things running in a node host. It has approachability but also performance and ubiquity of skill set, very little friction and is better suited for integrating native controls IMO.

React Native is part of a solid continuing trend. I've had a really good experience with the Appcelerator Titanium JS API for Android/iOS, and for the last couple versions iOS has a quality native JS API itself. Now ExponentJS has entered the ring powered by React Native and looks very very promising.

When a business needs to deploy to several platforms at once, it's a quick and success-proven model that still has good performance.

Re: JavaScript Conquered the Web, Now It’s Taking Over the Desktop

#90

Post by tobltobs »

pcwalton wrote: post #81
simula67 wrote: post #62

> It turns out it’s useful to have a lingua franca for the web. No, I don't think so. Most people do not use JavaScript since it is useful. They use it since it is the only option available on the browser. There is a BIG difference. > Creating desktop apps in JavaScript lets developers choose from a vast range of freely available code libraries and frameworks, which takes much of the grunt work out of coding Lots of…

> Let's just call this experiment a failure The problem with "just calling this experiment a failure"—why that won't work in practice—is that JavaScript is not a failure. It's extremely successful.

Browsers are successful and Javascript was lucky to be the common base of browser languages.
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