Was Standardizing On JavaScript a Mistake?

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions the wisdom of standardizing on a single language in the wake of the ECMA Committee's decision to abandon ECMAScript 4 in favor of the much less ambitious ECMAScript 3.1, stunting the future of JavaScript. Had the work continued, McAllister argues, it could have ushered in an era of large-scale application development that would ensure the browser's ability to meet our evolving needs in the years ahead. 'The more I hear about the ongoing efforts to revise the leading Web standards, the less convinced I am that we're approaching Web-based applications the right way,' McAllister writes. 'If anything, the more we talk about building large-scale Web applications, the more we should recognize that a single style of programming will never suit every job.' McAllister's simple truth: JavaScript will never be good for everything — especially as the Web continues to evolve beyond its original vision. His solution? 'Rather than shoehorning more and more functionality into the browser itself, maybe it's time we separated the UI from the underlying client-side logic. Let the browser handle the View. Let the Controller exist somewhere else, independent of the presentation layer.'"

Clearly

[Anonymous Coward]

We should patent Javascript right now! It's not like the patent office would reject it on the basis of prior art or anything since they don't seem to know what prior art means.

Re:Got it wrong

[Chaos Incarnate]

Any spec without ponies is a defective spec indeed.

Re:No scripting language is going to solve

[oyenstikker]

Java Web Start!

Re:Got it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the authors of these frameworks should work towards a common init procedure and test to see if such a function is already loaded. This isn't a problem with javascript and Silverlight/flex are not necessarily going to help you because many users (myself included) will not be running these.

Re:Got it wrong

[Hognoxious]

You're correct. Some of them aren't quick at all!

Re:Got it wrong

[AKAImBatman]

WRONG!

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm convinced. Your enthusiastic use of the word "WRONG!" has totally won me over. The fact that you only offered the weakest of excuses for your anti-Javascript bias does not matter. You yelled "WRONG!" louder than your opponent. Therefore you have convinced me.

Truly a masterful stroke.

Re:Got it wrong

[geminidomino]

But guess what, that's how PHP started out and look where it came.
 

To set that bar any lower, you'd need a spade.