Gnome Goes JavaScript 387
mikejuk writes "Much to most programmers' shock and dismay Gnome has made JavaScript its main language for apps. It will still support other languages and it still supports C for libraries, but for apps it is JavaScript that rules. JavaScript seems to be a good choice for Gnome 3, as the shell UI is written in the language. It is also consistent with the use of JavaScript in WinRT, Chrome Apps, and FirefoxOS apps, and generally the rise of web apps. As you might expect, the initial reactions are of horror at the idea that JavaScript has been selected rather than the favorite language of the commenter. There is a great deal of ignorance about (and prejudice against) JavaScript, which is often regarded as an incomplete toy language rather than the elegant and sparse language that it actually is."
Aprils Fools? (Score:5, Funny)
Some body misplaced a calendar?
Aprils Fools is in two months time.
Re:Read more facts here (Score:5, Funny)
Its clear that x86 asm is the predfered language for noobs to write proper Gnome Apps.
Re:Enough rope (Score:5, Funny)
You could argue C gives you all the rope you need as well.
C gives you all the rope you could ever want, wraps it wround your neck and encourages you to run very fast across a long, wobbly plank.
Oh, and don't forget to free() the rope when you're done with it.
Use the Farce, Gnome... (Score:5, Funny)
JavaScript is the programming language of a Gnome programmer; an elegant language for a more civilized age.
But hokey nonstandard libraries and ancient browser syntaxes are no match for a good object class at your side, kid.
Re:Enough rope (Score:5, Funny)
Because then people would be bitching endlessly about The Whitespace Thing, whereas JS has the curly braces that God and Dennis Ritchie intended.
Re:Enough rope (Score:4, Funny)
I've heard that C++ gives you all the rope you need to string yourself up and bind and gag everyone in the neighborhood.
Jeez, Louise... (Score:5, Funny)
At this point, I can only envision somebody at the head of Gnome saying, "Dammit, people are still using Gnome! Well, what else can we do to kill this thing?"
Re:Enough rope (Score:4, Funny)
Obviously that's because anyone who uses C++ is heavily into BDSM.
Re:why not guile? (Score:5, Funny)
Personally, I prefer Chun Li.
Re:Enough rope (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry: the rope is automatically freed when you are terminated.
Re:Read more facts here (Score:5, Funny)
Why is this funny? Assembler was the first programming language I really understood because it's so simple to see what's going on in it. What I struggled with was object orientation because I thought objects were redundant with classes. It seemed philosophical compared to how concrete a stack and an arithmetic unit is. I knew what the circuits of the latter looked like and even knew about electrons and holes.
Unless you've been living under a rock the past decade you know the Internet runs on Javascript because it is non-blocking. I don't expect most of the Slashdot crowd to know what that means anymore, nor why halting is a problem. I'll appeal to authority instead and tell you that it is what Google uses and Google cares about the responsiveness of the UI. Slashdot's favorite mobile phone, the N9, uses QML and Javascript for the UI and wow have you been happy with it until now!
People complain about how it's easy it is to screw things up in Javascript. It's pretty easy to write a recursive loop in C and mess up the exit too. Javascript has frameworks, and if you use the Chrome Inspector you can actually see the variables update at a high FPS and then drop to a crawl when the tab loses focus. You don't need to compile anything. With just CSS and jQuery you can start doing useful things in your daily environment.
IMO an example of a truly monstrous language is Java. It just seems idiotic that that by writing the same thing in three slightly different ways you'll somehow come up with more robust code. It's like a language that was never meant for humans to write, but for some reason we were supposed to read it. Yet it's ECMAscript that's considered harmful??
Re:Enough rope (Score:1, Funny)
FTFY