The JavaScript Juggernaut Rolls On 505
JThaddeus writes "An article in TechWorld Australia summarizes the latest opinions on JavaScript from ThoughtWorks: 'There is no end in sight to the rise of JavaScript... "I think JavaScript has been seen as a serious language for the last two or three years; I think now increasingly we're seeing JavaScript as a platform," said Sam Newman, ThoughtWorks' Global Innovation Lead.' The article touches on new additions to JavaScript tools, techniques, and languages built on JavaScript. As the fuller report (PDF) says, 'The ecosystem around JavaScript as a serious application platform continues to evolve. Many interesting new tools for testing, building, and managing dependencies in both server- and client-side JavaScript applications have emerged recently.'"
SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Peak "platform" (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the word "platform" officially over? My fucking toaster is a bread-browning platform.
Re:Replusive (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do the worst technologies that are just barely able to solve the problem always make it? Is the developer community collectively really this stupid? I fear it is...
Because technologies that just barely solve a problem allow people who can just barely do the job to barely solve the problem. People that can barely do the job are less expensive than people who do the job right. Unfortunate enough people are willing to live with "just barely".
Just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
...a programming language (still) doesn't have to be good in order to see widespread use.
Re:How about a generic scripting engine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse is better (Score:5, Insightful)
Load fast, or user will click Back (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are some developers obsessed with performance? The user probably isn't. They don't care whether something loads 2 seconds quicker
I thought loading faster was the difference between the user staying on a document and the user hitting the Back button to return to someone else's document. Web search engines have recognized this and have started to penalize slow-loading documents.
Kinda Suprised...but I guess I shouldn't be... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about a generic scripting engine? (Score:2, Insightful)
It really says something about JavaScript that the "hottest" technologies are ingenious ways to avoid actually CODING in JavaScript!
Re:Replusive (Score:4, Insightful)
Good enough is perfect.
You can endlessly polish your elegant solutions for decades (see Hurd) while the rest of the world happily uses "technologies that are just barely able to solve the problem".
Javascript is paradigm-free (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing I personally like about Javascript is that it covers all three of the currently most popular programming paradigms.
You want an imperative style of development? Javascript can do that, check.
You want an object-oriented style of development? Javascript can do that, check.
You want a functional style of development? Javascript can do that too, check.
Some would argue that by covering so many different paradigms, it ends up covering none of them as well as languages that are designed for a specific paradigm from the ground up, and I wouldn't really refute this point... but it easily does all three of them well enough to still be profoundly productive when developing in any of them, and this means that a programmer is relatively free to pick the paradigm that best models the original problem when designing a solution. This, in my experience, results in shorter development cycles, and frequently much less buggy code.
Re: Peak "platform" (Score:2, Insightful)
COBOL is a far better language than JS. JS is more likely to be the next VB6.
Re:I has a sad (Score:2, Insightful)
So... What's wrong with the language? Or were you just repeating the meme?
Re:Replusive (Score:4, Insightful)
Because "worst language" is generally a compromise between competing ideas and interests of various stakeholders. Compromise is rarely pretty.
Re:Javascript is paradigm-free (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're absolutely right - being able to choose a mode of programming is neat and Java does lend itself to doing neat things. But it still feels like a language that someone quickly hacked together. And the freedom to pick a paradigm means your fellow coders get to pick whatever happens to be in their clue bucket for the day. At least with a language that focuses on imperative or functional coding you can be reasonably sure that the guy sitting next to you has a similar view of reality as you do. "Multi-paradigm" is a bit like saying "post modern", with all the positive and negative connotations. I prefer my languages neo-classical
Re:The hipsters need to go. Now. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have decades of industry experience in Silicon Valley as well. And really, your post comes off more as a bunch of whining than an actual critique. There are always going to be new technologies, and the people who are heavily invested in the previous generation of technologies will always groan about these dag-gone kids with all their newfangled ways of doing things. Heck, I've been guilty of this kind of thinking myself.
But you know what? When we entered the industry as young whippersnappers, the previous generation of programmers said the exact same kinds of things about us.
And somehow, despite all that, progress marches on.
Re:jscript (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like you are not using the correct tools and environment, which makes debugging harder. And using that same setup to read news with a coding environment is just stupid. I don't read news with my development database or web server, so why would I risk infecting my development environment from known malware vectors of even legit advertising?
You conclude with "horrible language", but your comments support "horrible programmers" all the way around.
I'm making no defense here, only pointing out that your opinion is not based on objective consideration. Were it otherwise, you would support your conclusion better, naturally.
Re:Peak "platform" (Score:3, Insightful)
Words have meaning and purpose. What words would you use to express the following concepts?
- a collection of tools which allow you to build a new component through their leverage, while not contributing significantly to the overall effectiveness of the tools (or won't particularly be used in operation)
- a collection of functional components which you will use as part of the operation of a new component
Currently, the words are "platform" and "system". I'm happy to switch to other words if they express the concept better.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Web Workers (Score:4, Insightful)
Heck, you're right and didn't even have to go into how f-ed up JavaScript is as a language... "dynamic scoping"... really??? That idea sucked in Lisp and I thought we got past it in the 60's after that cock-up. And now we're supposed to take this bastard child serisouly?