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There's a certain amount of irony in mentioning "Worse is Better" in this context. People trying to use Javascript as a surrogate C++^H^H^H Java will be sorely

There's a certain amount of irony in mentioning "Worse is Better" in this context. People trying to use Javascript as a surrogate C++^H^H^H Java will be sorely disappointed. People trying to use Javascript as something that blends Scheme and Smalltalk will be using it as its creator intended. While this won't make the extreme purists happy, for many of us, Javascript is an acceptable Lisp. I have come to prefer Javascript to Java (or C#), but most of my coworkers still think in Java, so that's another issue :-)

geofft 10y ago
Yeah, it's very true that JS is much more of a Lisp than a curly-brace language, despite its syntax. But I think the reference is still fitting because JS is an absolutely terrible Lisp. :) And the story of JS interpreters, JITs, etc. in browsers (and not in browsers) matches the story of C compilers in the essay, just with changes in timing: C is therefore a language for which it is easy to write a decent compiler, and it requires the programmer to write text that is easy for the compiler to interpret. Some have called C a fancy assembly language. Both early Unix and C compilers had simple structures, are easy to port, require few machine resources to run, and provide about 50%-80% of what you want from an operating system and programming language. [...] Therefore, the worse-is-better software first will gain acceptance, second will condition its users to expect less, and third will be improved to a point that is almost the right thing. In concrete terms, even though Lisp compilers in 1987 were about as good as C compilers, there are many more compiler experts who want to make C compilers better than want to make Lisp compilers better. The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  Worse & Worserer: Windows and C++, which even more people run :-( (with apologies to the Dumb and Dumber movies)
prodigal_erik 10y ago
If Javascript were an acceptable Lisp, you could have written async/await as a small set of macros instead of waiting for a huge third party project that knows how to parse the grammar.

geofft 10y ago

Yeah, it's very true that JS is much more of a Lisp than a curly-brace language, despite its syntax. But I think the reference is still fitting because JS is an absolutely terrible Lisp. :) And the story of JS interpreters, JITs, etc. in browsers (and not in browsers) matches the story of C compilers in the essay, just with changes in timing: C is therefore a language for which it is easy to write a decent compiler, and it requires the programmer to write text that is easy for the compiler to interpret. Some have called C a fancy assembly language. Both early Unix and C compilers had simple structures, are easy to port, require few machine resources to run, and provide about 50%-80% of what you want from an operating system and programming language. [...] Therefore, the worse-is-better software first will gain acceptance, second will condition its users to expect less, and third will be improved to a point that is almost the right thing. In concrete terms, even though Lisp compilers in 1987 were about as good as C compilers, there are many more compiler experts who want to make C compilers better than want to make Lisp compilers better. The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++.

Roboprog 10y ago
Worse & Worserer: Windows and C++, which even more people run :-( (with apologies to the Dumb and Dumber movies)

prodigal_erik 10y ago

If Javascript were an acceptable Lisp, you could have written async/await as a small set of macros instead of waiting for a huge third party project that knows how to parse the grammar.