

Worrying trends in programming languages: Javascript - gdp
http://plsadventures.blogspot.com/2009/08/worrying-trends-in-programming.html

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thenduks
I'm not even sure I follow the premise of this article, perhaps someone can
enlighten me.

Seems like it's all based on "I don't like Javascript, so we should replace it
because no one wants to write it"... whoa hold on a second there professor! I
_love_ Javascript. It's fast, full-featured (you _can_ do what Flash can do in
Javascript, just don't try to support IE6 -- hardly Javascript's fault), it
looks pretty, it's easy to understand, it takes a lot of load off my back-end
servers, etc, etc, etc.

I write Javascript all day long and I'm happy about it.

Anyway. I hope Javascript does get more usage, although I think it's already
approaching use on 100% of websites as it is... so... mission accomplished!

~~~
robotron
I am no great fan of Javascript but it definitely has it's place and I'm knee-
deep in it at the moment. It works and is useful. Should it be used for
everything? Of course not.

This article is little more than a rant against a language the author
personally doesn't like. That's okay. Maybe he can come up with something
better.

~~~
gdp
HN provides again! Why read past the first paragraph when you can reply
straight away!

You did see that the second half of the article was dedicated to reasonably
concrete strategies that would be an improvement over the status quo, right?

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Tichy
I think JavaScript is pretty cool, actually. Everything is a hash - how much
more simple can it get? In my opinion programming languages should strive for
a small number of concepts, and JavaScript does very well in that regard.

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sad
There is a point made that anything done in flash should be doable in
javascript. But flash is more than just actionscript, it's also a presentation
engine that is much more appealing to those little applications that require a
speedier UI.

HTML5 to the rescue. Maybe.

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embeddedradical
really, all we need is better tools for working with javascript. the language
is fine. the pain is in the lack of quality tools.

aptana is the best ide i know of to write javascript in, and it's decent, but
you don't get the documentation you can embed into javascript the way you can
with visual studio. however, in visual studio, there is no document outliner
to quickly navigate large amounts of javascript like you can in aptana studio.
so although i like the documentation add-ons microsoft made for intellisense
in visual studio, i write javascript primarily with aptana studio. the
intellisense in both is merely ok when compared to intellisense for other
languages and ides.

then when debugging, the best tool i know of is firefox with firebug, which we
all love because it's just there, but is horrible when it comes to stability
as of late.

nothing is wrong with the language; major need, though, for better tools.

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mgreenbe
Proof-carrying code is a fine idea, but the proofs for JS programs get into
subtle security ideas, confidentiality and integrity being the big two.
Information-flow type systems can address this, but I'm not sure I would call
them production ready.

Moreover, Javascript is already a very low bar to set in terms of security,
and there are _still_ serious compatibility issues between implementations.

Finally, the fact that the web is human-readable is a boon. Who will
standardize the bytecode representation? Our benevolent Macromedia/Adobe
overlords? Microsoft? The W3C?

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pkulak
I'm pretty sure most of the current JS interpreters do JIT native compiling of
the code... much like Java (that he seems to like more), but with functions as
first-class citizens. There are only a few languages I'd rather use than JS,
and Java sure isn't one of them!

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TweedHeads
Better get used to it, soon it will be used on the server side too.

