5 ms·

I believe there is already work on type inferers and static analyzers. Stripped down, functional C with type inference? Yes, please.

kaendfinger 11y ago
All of which are going to be mediocre because JavaScript is a very hard language to simply reason about for machines.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  The language is not fixed, further, tools do not need to support every feature.
  - kaendfinger 11y ago
    Here's the thing, JavaScript as it is (specifically ES5, a little bit less so with ES6, but even then, still an issue) is too dynamic to reason about very well, especially when using large libraries that do crazy things. Yes, it can be changed to be easier to reason about, but the fundamental issue I see is that too many people are using the very dynamic features of JavaScript.
    - derefr 11y ago
      Javascript could be versioned. If Javascript is changed to be more static and less "forgiving", browsers could ship with one engine to run legacy ES6 code and another to run new code.
Drup 11y ago
How about a language that is not shit instead ? Javascript is the C++ of web dev. You bolt a ton of things on top of a shitty language and you hope to obtain a slice of it that is decent in the long run. Except it's still going to be full of terrible quirks and 30 ways to shoot yourself. I'm sorry, but I don't want this future for programming.
- Touche 11y ago
  One thing JavaScript gets very right is first-class functions. There's nothing bolt-on about those. It makes it very easy to tolerate warts (which don't come up often anyways).
  - douche 11y ago
    Piss poor string handling functions out of the box? Shitty date/time implementations (unless you're using moment) Callback hell? That's just my list for this morning.
    - Touche 11y ago
      > Piss poor string handling functions out of the box? Don't know what you mean by this. As for the other things; like I said, getting first class functions right makes those other things unimportant. Are you running into the problems with DateTime that often? I can't even remember what those problems are. I don't doubt they exist, but I think you're over-inflating the importance.
  - Drup 11y ago
    They are not "very right" due to all the scoping weirdness and the late binding semantic.
- mercurial 11y ago
  C++ wouldn't have been the first thing I'd compare JS to. Visual Basic, maybe? But yeah, if you absolutely want a dynamic language, you have much saner choices with a considerably more robust ecosystem (hello Python). > I'm sorry, but I don't want this future for programming. I don't want this present either :)
- vans 11y ago
  You are so right !

kaendfinger 11y ago

All of which are going to be mediocre because JavaScript is a very hard language to simply reason about for machines.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
The language is not fixed, further, tools do not need to support every feature.
- kaendfinger 11y ago
  Here's the thing, JavaScript as it is (specifically ES5, a little bit less so with ES6, but even then, still an issue) is too dynamic to reason about very well, especially when using large libraries that do crazy things. Yes, it can be changed to be easier to reason about, but the fundamental issue I see is that too many people are using the very dynamic features of JavaScript.
  - derefr 11y ago
    Javascript could be versioned. If Javascript is changed to be more static and less "forgiving", browsers could ship with one engine to run legacy ES6 code and another to run new code.

Drup 11y ago

How about a language that is not shit instead ? Javascript is the C++ of web dev. You bolt a ton of things on top of a shitty language and you hope to obtain a slice of it that is decent in the long run. Except it's still going to be full of terrible quirks and 30 ways to shoot yourself. I'm sorry, but I don't want this future for programming.

Touche 11y ago
One thing JavaScript gets very right is first-class functions. There's nothing bolt-on about those. It makes it very easy to tolerate warts (which don't come up often anyways).
- douche 11y ago
  Piss poor string handling functions out of the box? Shitty date/time implementations (unless you're using moment) Callback hell? That's just my list for this morning.
  - Touche 11y ago
    > Piss poor string handling functions out of the box? Don't know what you mean by this. As for the other things; like I said, getting first class functions right makes those other things unimportant. Are you running into the problems with DateTime that often? I can't even remember what those problems are. I don't doubt they exist, but I think you're over-inflating the importance.
- Drup 11y ago
  They are not "very right" due to all the scoping weirdness and the late binding semantic.
mercurial 11y ago
C++ wouldn't have been the first thing I'd compare JS to. Visual Basic, maybe? But yeah, if you absolutely want a dynamic language, you have much saner choices with a considerably more robust ecosystem (hello Python). > I'm sorry, but I don't want this future for programming. I don't want this present either :)
vans 11y ago
You are so right !