4 ms·

First off, sorry for the downvotes. Your opinion is unpopular, but it breeds discussion. Now.. I'm so lost, why on earth are you reading binaries? You keep cit

First off, sorry for the downvotes. Your opinion is unpopular, but it breeds discussion. Now.. I'm so lost, why on earth are you reading binaries? You keep citing examples of cleaning up after other people for a job. Why don't you have their source code? If your job was with any other language, you would have the source code - you would not be given a Go binary and told to "fix what those previous morons did" - you would demand the source. Are you saying that you are frequently given minified javascript off of some website and that the previous workers left with the source code?

dccoolgai 10y ago
First, no worries. If I have karma, there is no better way to spend it than advocating for a more maintainable Open Web in my opinion. As for "I'm so lost, why on earth are you reading binaries?" Consider every Perl/Haskell`/Smalltalk/COBOL developer for a moment. Do you think it's more likely that when this becomes a production standard they are going to say to themselves "You know what, I feel bad for the guys that will have to maintain this I'm just going to learn JS so at least it can be maintained in the same language the rest of the web is"... because I think it's probably more likely that they will immediately start transpiling binaries from COBOL etc, into WASM to run the web. Great for them, really but that's what leaves us with binaries to deal with.
- justinpombrio 10y ago
  Would you mind answering the second half of that question? I'm curious. > You keep citing examples of cleaning up after other people for a job. Why don't you have their source code?
  - dccoolgai 10y ago
    Sure, let's have a karma bonfire: Sometimes I inherit minified code from someone who was hired years ago and for one of msny reasons is not available any more. It doesn't happen every day, thankfully. When it does, I'm happy that I can at least read and repurpose the JS that's left. Downvote away.
    - onion2k 10y ago
      If that's the case then you (or your clients, or whoever owns the code) have some rather serious code management issues. The answer is to fix that problem, not to suggest the programming language is broken because the compiled result isn't readable. If you were working in C/Java/etc I'm sure your first reaction to the same problem wouldn't be "C is broken because I can't debug a compiled executable easily!".
      - dccoolgai 10y ago
        You seem to be suggesting that if I only had the source, that would solve all of my problems but that is one of my biggest fears about WASM to be honest- because the source of the web has always been JS or something extremely close to it, like coffescript or Typescript. Now someone could start writing source for the web in COBOL. I hope I'm wrong about this, and -50 karma from this thread is telling me most people think I am, but I genuinely fear a less maintainable Web.
        onion2k 10y ago
        I don't think that's a valid complaint given the number of languages that can already be compiled to JS. Including COBOL ... https://github.com/ajlopez/CobolScript https://github.com/ajlopez/CobolScript It's a long list: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-languages-that-compile-to-js https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu... Also, ultimately, there will be code that you can't maintain because you don't understand it. That might be because it's written in a language you don't know, but it might also be because it's written in a style you don't understand, or with a framework you've never used, or because it's about a topic that you haven't spent time with. That's OK. You don't need to be able to do everything.
        dccoolgai 10y ago
        I see what you're saying and I know a lot of the fear I have is somewhat irrationally based on the idea that my knowledge of JS should give me the ability to fix anything on the web - and you rightly point out that there already are a bunch of languages that compile to down to JS/EmScripten/asm - so what's the big deal? I guess for me, it's just the fact that they at least have to knock on JS's door on the way to the web - so, in a sense, as a JS dev you get the privilege of at least being there between COBOL and the web. I recognize that's a position of privilege and it always hurts when privilege gets taken away - it may be more in keeping with the spirit of the Web that COBOL devs should have just as much access to the platform - and an equal-access compile target - as I do. I know asm/emscripten are a "thing", but they seem like a foot in the door for the buffet of languages that want access to the web, where ASM is blowing it wide open. I'm going to cherish the time I have left with JS as the lingua franca of the web and just accept that the future of the web will be one that I can't read/fix quite as well because it's not possible to know every language and I need to be OK with that... and I think I am for the most part, I'll just miss the Web of One Language. Also - thanks for taking the time to make a thoughtful reply instead of just suggesting I'm a complete ignoramus and downblasting my response because we have a marginal disagreement about the Open Web Platform - made my day!
- cstrahan 10y ago
  It would be an incredible feat of engineering to be able to "transpile" an existing executable to WASM - if you're familiar with dynamic linking, the ELF format itself (or Windows' PE), the common processor instruction sets, etc - you'll know that won't be a problem anytime soon. Short of an x86 VM written in JS, it just ain't gonna happen. Now, about having other languages compiled to the web, we already have that. Looking at specifically Haskell, we have GHCJS, and it (thankfully) works pretty well. You may not like the idea that there will be new web projects using technologies that you lack proficiency in, but this is no different then how the rest of the software world works. For example, Google's Go language is picking up steam - in fact, I use it at work. If I didn't take the time to learn Go, I simply wouldn't be employed to work on that project. Similarly, I know people who are enjoying an incredible competitive advantage in their market by using Haskell for their web development (both backend with GHC and front end with GHCJS). If you don't learn Haskell, you won't be hired for those jobs. I do, however, guarantee that they'll still have the source on hand.

dccoolgai 10y ago

First, no worries. If I have karma, there is no better way to spend it than advocating for a more maintainable Open Web in my opinion. As for "I'm so lost, why on earth are you reading binaries?" Consider every Perl/Haskell`/Smalltalk/COBOL developer for a moment. Do you think it's more likely that when this becomes a production standard they are going to say to themselves "You know what, I feel bad for the guys that will have to maintain this I'm just going to learn JS so at least it can be maintained in the same language the rest of the web is"... because I think it's probably more likely that they will immediately start transpiling binaries from COBOL etc, into WASM to run the web. Great for them, really but that's what leaves us with binaries to deal with.

justinpombrio 10y ago
Would you mind answering the second half of that question? I'm curious. > You keep citing examples of cleaning up after other people for a job. Why don't you have their source code?
- dccoolgai 10y ago
  Sure, let's have a karma bonfire: Sometimes I inherit minified code from someone who was hired years ago and for one of msny reasons is not available any more. It doesn't happen every day, thankfully. When it does, I'm happy that I can at least read and repurpose the JS that's left. Downvote away.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    If that's the case then you (or your clients, or whoever owns the code) have some rather serious code management issues. The answer is to fix that problem, not to suggest the programming language is broken because the compiled result isn't readable. If you were working in C/Java/etc I'm sure your first reaction to the same problem wouldn't be "C is broken because I can't debug a compiled executable easily!".
    - dccoolgai 10y ago
      You seem to be suggesting that if I only had the source, that would solve all of my problems but that is one of my biggest fears about WASM to be honest- because the source of the web has always been JS or something extremely close to it, like coffescript or Typescript. Now someone could start writing source for the web in COBOL. I hope I'm wrong about this, and -50 karma from this thread is telling me most people think I am, but I genuinely fear a less maintainable Web.
      - onion2k 10y ago
        I don't think that's a valid complaint given the number of languages that can already be compiled to JS. Including COBOL ... https://github.com/ajlopez/CobolScript https://github.com/ajlopez/CobolScript It's a long list: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-languages-that-compile-to-js https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/wiki/list-of-langu... Also, ultimately, there will be code that you can't maintain because you don't understand it. That might be because it's written in a language you don't know, but it might also be because it's written in a style you don't understand, or with a framework you've never used, or because it's about a topic that you haven't spent time with. That's OK. You don't need to be able to do everything.
        dccoolgai 10y ago
        I see what you're saying and I know a lot of the fear I have is somewhat irrationally based on the idea that my knowledge of JS should give me the ability to fix anything on the web - and you rightly point out that there already are a bunch of languages that compile to down to JS/EmScripten/asm - so what's the big deal? I guess for me, it's just the fact that they at least have to knock on JS's door on the way to the web - so, in a sense, as a JS dev you get the privilege of at least being there between COBOL and the web. I recognize that's a position of privilege and it always hurts when privilege gets taken away - it may be more in keeping with the spirit of the Web that COBOL devs should have just as much access to the platform - and an equal-access compile target - as I do. I know asm/emscripten are a "thing", but they seem like a foot in the door for the buffet of languages that want access to the web, where ASM is blowing it wide open. I'm going to cherish the time I have left with JS as the lingua franca of the web and just accept that the future of the web will be one that I can't read/fix quite as well because it's not possible to know every language and I need to be OK with that... and I think I am for the most part, I'll just miss the Web of One Language. Also - thanks for taking the time to make a thoughtful reply instead of just suggesting I'm a complete ignoramus and downblasting my response because we have a marginal disagreement about the Open Web Platform - made my day!
cstrahan 10y ago
It would be an incredible feat of engineering to be able to "transpile" an existing executable to WASM - if you're familiar with dynamic linking, the ELF format itself (or Windows' PE), the common processor instruction sets, etc - you'll know that won't be a problem anytime soon. Short of an x86 VM written in JS, it just ain't gonna happen. Now, about having other languages compiled to the web, we already have that. Looking at specifically Haskell, we have GHCJS, and it (thankfully) works pretty well. You may not like the idea that there will be new web projects using technologies that you lack proficiency in, but this is no different then how the rest of the software world works. For example, Google's Go language is picking up steam - in fact, I use it at work. If I didn't take the time to learn Go, I simply wouldn't be employed to work on that project. Similarly, I know people who are enjoying an incredible competitive advantage in their market by using Haskell for their web development (both backend with GHC and front end with GHCJS). If you don't learn Haskell, you won't be hired for those jobs. I do, however, guarantee that they'll still have the source on hand.