

Ask HN: Why are some of the older developers afraid of javascript? - vaksel

They do everything in their power to avoid using it. It seems like they missed the memo, and still think majority of the population doesn't use javascript enabled browsers?
======
RobGR
I don't write javascript, because I don't run javascript (with a few
exceptions). I associate javascript with crap websites. It is slow and it
causes the browser to use up a lot of memory. The functionality gained by it
is usually pointless fru-fru, the doilies and tailfins of the internet. I
fully realize that to some people those doilies and tailfins are very
important, but perhaps I can achieve my business goals by selling things to
other people.

The notion of writing a program to run on someone's desktop is reasonable; the
notion of writing a program to run on my server, but send it's display
information out to a browser, is also reasonable. The idea of having most of a
program be on my server, but some random chunks be on the user's computer,
seems like a bad split. I realize that in some cases such as input data
validation it can remove a browser-server round trip, and in some cases it
might be an over all win; but as a general rule it's a bad idea.

There is an idea that you can avoid the load of running everything on your
server, but also avoid the problems of writing client programs for all the
variations of operating systems, by writing code that runs in some wrapper,
usually associated with the browser. These attempts - flash, java applets,
javascript, active X objects, etc - are all bad ideas.

I realize that the majority of the population uses javascript enabled
browsers. I didn't "miss the memo", I was there when the memo came out: I
remember attending free lectures given by Sun Java evangelists when Java was
first released, in fact I still have a free coffee mug with "headstart java"
or something on it around here. I got excited, did the "hello world" app and
then a calculator, and then suddenly had to disable java applets to keep the
ads from crapping up my browser. Javascript came after that, then flash, now
it looks like Microsoft is pushing this silverlight thing which sounds like
v5.0 of the same bad idea.

Now, just so I don't totally seem like an old grouch, here's some constructive
advice: write your web app so it's interface is all very standard, very
minimal html. Then, write an iPhone program that does the client-side stuff
you think is so great. If you are still in business after that, take the
iPhone app and make it into an OSX desktop program and announce your iPhone
app is now available on the desktop. Presuming your idea is not the friendster
or geocities of it's age and already dead, and presuming that people find
these client-side features appealing enough to download and install something,
then move on to making your desktop client work on other platforms. Do not
take the shortcut of presuming that the browser is an appropriate platform.

~~~
lacker
_I associate javascript with crap websites._

You don't like Gmail? Or Google Maps? Or the fact that when you click an up or
down arrow here on Hacker News, you don't have to reload a new page?

~~~
RobGR
Clicking the up and down arrow on HN seems to work OK. Similar voting or
comment moderation systems on reddit or other places are sometimes reasonably
fast.

I would not mind selecting a pull-down or radio button and hitting submit at
the bottom of the page, however. In fact I'd prefer it.

And there are more examples of such systems poorly implemented, often to the
point that they kill the usefulness of the site. Slashdot's firehose with it's
+ / - buttons is like that, and slashdot's main page has become like that, but
I am logged in have as many "new features" turned off in my preferences as
possible. When I type text into a box on Facebook, I can outrun the letters
appearing by several sentences. There are numerous sites that use various
kinds of javascript rich text or html editors that are also pretty unuseable.

I like gmail, but not it's javascript features. I use the basic html setting,
because if I live it up with the normal setting, my browser will become
unuseable after a few hours. It was particularly bad in some of the previous
versions of firefox, which apparently had some memory fragmentation issue
regarding parsing javascript, but as javascript brings no benefits and makes
the page take slightly longer to upgrade, I have never switched back even now
that I have the latest upgrades to the browser.

I like google maps as an application, and I use it pretty extensively, at
least once a week. I don't find it's panning arrows and so on particularly
appealing, and I habitually restart the browser after using it, to clean out
any javacrap memory issues remaining.

And it is not simply the idea of the type of interface google maps has that I
object to: for example, I love Google Earth, and I like to change the angle of
view and rotate around various landmarks and so on. This is on the same
computer where I turn off java script for gmail. So it's not just that I have
some Amish insteance on older interfaces. It is that javascript in the browser
sucks.

Now, that doesn't mean you won't make a billion dollars making a web site that
depends on javascript, of course. But all other things being equal, I think
you should focus on interfaces that are very simple and very fast if you want
to get adoption. It's probably more important to hand-code your html and run
it through packing scripts that remove all whitespace and etc, to really
scrape every last byte out of what is sent to the user, than it is to have an
up/down arrow that automatically submits to the server.

------
icey
If I had to guess, it'd probably be roughly related to things like this:

    
    
        var x = 1;
        var y = 1;
    
        function methodA()
        {
    	return
    	    {
    	 	javascript: x + y
    	    };
        }
    
        function methodB()
        {
    	return{
    		javascript: x + y
    	};
        }
    
    

(Hint: They don't do the same thing)

~~~
spoiledtechie
Answer?

~~~
icey
methodA returns "undefined", methodB returns an object.

------
joe_bleau
I only turn javascript on when I need it for a site that I trust (easy with
Opera). If I forget and leave it on, it seems like far too many sites bog down
my machine with crappy eye-candy and advertising. (Maybe I won't care so much
when/if I upgrade to a faster PC.)

I find it terribly annoying when a site requires javascript, but doesn't do
anything compelling with it. For instance, why on earth does this page require
javascript to be on, just to show me a .jpg map?
<http://www.arkansashighways.com/Road/mapopt.htm>

------
noodle
a lot of older developers still view javascript as the unstable, insecure
language.

as an example, steve gibson (of grc.com) won't use it, iirc.

and they're right, really. you can't put bulky business logic in javascript if
you have any need for security.

~~~
vaksel
I think the security aspect is not entirely why. The guy I talked to, won't
even use it for image popups or to navigate a form. Instead of clicking one
pulldown, and having the next one auto-filled, he has users click a button.

~~~
gnaritas
Then he's an idiot.

------
amichail
I would not use javascript much in the same way as I would not use assembler.
But using javascript as the target of a more stable platform with extensive
tool support (e.g., Java with GWT) is fine.

