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The legal concerns are legitimate, but frankly, I am unconvinced by the criticisms of JavaScript: There are well-known, well-designed tools like ESLint, and if you like types, Flow and TypeScript, which can mitigate the issues. That's more than you can say about Java (COBOL 2.0, now with a bevy of cargo-cult OO that makes things more overly complex), or Objective-C (All the safety of C, with similar OO problems, and a weird syntax that very few people like, and of course, no GC).



This comment is flaming on Java and Objective-C, seemingly without having the experience to back it up.

For instance, nobody uses Objective-C for iOS development any more (see: Swift). And modern Java is a decent language to develop in (with Rx and the like). You can even develop for Android in kotlin, which gives many of the advantages of JavaScript, but with a static type system and deep IDE integration.


I was exaggerating, but the point was that the other app development languages aren't without their flaws.

I won't argue with you on how good the languages are. It's a matter of opinion, and I'll never change your mind.

Besides, establishing one langauge as better than another was never my point.


The standard defense of JavaScript is no different than the standard defense of PHP. There are good arguments but that is still the camp you're in.


JS's sins are far less than those of PHP, however.


Some of us happen to think that no GC is a good thing, in Obj-C's case. Swift eschews it as well.


Manual memory management: It's all fun and games until OOM errors come knocking, or- Segmentation Fault: Core Dumped.

I rest my case. There's a place for manual memory management. It's not in application code.


Not necessarily. Swift uses ARC by default, and you'd really have to go out of your way to do any manual memory management.


Ah. I originally talking about Objective-C, so I assumed that we were talking about manual memory management.

Of course, ARC has its own problems... Hope anybody implementing graphs knows what they're doing, or you'll leak memory like Niagra Falls.


Objective-C also uses ARC by default, and that's been the case for several years now. In any event, avoiding retain cycles is relatively straightforward and most iOS devs I know would agree that the low memory overhead and lack of GC pauses are worth the occasional extra effort of weak references.


I didn't know that Objective-C defaulted to ARC. Thanks for the information, and I am sorry for misrepresenting the language.




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