

Is The Death Of JavaScript Upon Us, Or Is A Transformation Underway? - philco
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/the-future-of-javascript/

======
ender7
Does the title of this article propose a false dichotomy between two equally
unlikely outcomes, or was that a giant waste of 15 paragraphs of my time?

Look, JS is a lovely language, and it's fun to write things in Node. However,
no one thinks that JS is going to become a "universal language", even though
all the cool kids are writing the next great todo list web app using Node-
powered hyper asteroids. Nor will Javascript "die out" for reasons that should
be obvious to anyone. Some people will write backends in Node, but most people
will write them via one of the other myriad backend languages available.
Huzzah! Choices in backend development. Rejoice!

~~~
beatgammit
I didn't read anything new there, except maybe the mention of ASM.js.

JS is a fine language, but I've run into problems where I wished I had just a
little more structure. I've started to turn to Dart, and I hope it catches on.
My servers are usually in Go because that's what it was designed for.

So to answer your question, I think it was a giant wast of 15 paragraphs. No
new information, no new analysis, just the same old complaining.

------
stuffihavemade
"Startups identify with JavaScript. When you’re just starting out, you need to
be dynamic. You need to be flexible. You need to be able to bust out a
prototype that just works, and you need to be able to change it on a dime
without recompiling your code. JavaScript was once the startup of the browser
wars, and it crushed Java and Flash for the same reasons that startups have
the ability to disrupt markets and displace the established players: agility
and flexibility."

What nonsense.

1) " When you’re just starting out, you need to be dynamic. You need to be
flexible. You need to be able to bust out a prototype that just works, and you
need to be able to change it on a dime without recompiling your code."

Unlike Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, any of the Lisps, Lua, etc.? The real reasons
js is interesting on the server side is code sharing and node's (flawed)
concurrency story.

2) "JavaScript was once the startup of the browser wars, and it crushed Java
and Flash for the same reasons that startups have the ability to disrupt
markets and displace the established players: agility and flexibility."

Comparing apples to oranges. Also, the term "browser wars" means browser vs.
browser, not embedded scripting language vs. plugins.

------
pella
#Mloc.js 2013 videos/presentations

<http://mloc-js.com/#videos>

for example:

Douglas Crockford (PayPal) : Syntaxation

Michael Ficarra (Groupon) : Redesign of CoffeeScript

------
opinali
"ASM.js, a subset of JavaScript that runs extremely fast on modern browsers
without modification" -- NOT TRUE. The author implies (either purposefully or
accidentally) that ANY "modern browser" will run asm.js fast, or in other
words, current advanced JS VMs don't need modifications to effectively support
asm.js. If you believe that, just look here:
[https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-
inbound/rev/b3d85...](https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-
inbound/rev/b3d85b68449d)

------
sek
Flexibility is not the opposite of scalability. Maybe he means writing hacks,
but then you have problems after 200 of code already. If he means dynamic
typing and lambdas, that doesn't prevent Python from being scalable. Startup
or big corp.

The equivalent of Typescript is Google Closure not Dart. Dart could kill
JavaScript one day, but that doesn't seem to be the topic here.

What does the author try to communicate here?

------
chipsy
A bad article with a wonderful writing prompt.

We've long passed the point where JS is considered foundational technology,
with near-universal adoption. It's hard to understate what that level of
standardization can do for the whole software ecosystem, since - in tandem
with the push for better browsers - it's allowing a whole new round of
innovation to take place.

------
boomlinde
The article seems to assume that the limitations of javascript is something
inherent to dynamic language. It reads like the author has no real experience
outside web development.

For all we know, the only reason JavaScript "excels at being the glue of the
web" is that it's the only widely supported client side scripting language for
browsers.

------
jasonlingx
>When it comes to demanding multimedia applications, companies still turn to
Flash for performance.

Huh?

~~~
banachtarski
Games. HTML5 + js still loses to AS3/Flash

------
michaelwww
I had this eerie feeling that I was reading Thomas Friedman -- a lot of hand
waving with little substance.

------
AlexDanger
I love language wars. It makes it very easy to identify people you dont want
to work with.

------
angersock
I really hate to expose my naivete by asking this but its mention in the
article forces my hand: Who the _hell_ is writing web apps with _millions_ of
lines of JS?

~~~
krapp
I assume they're theoretically counting node.js backend stuff. At least I hope
so.

