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probably so astronomers can easily focus on their work - pointing the 'scope at stuff - and not worry about writing elegant/concise/reusable/succinct/$(feelgood
by digler999 10y ago
probably so astronomers can easily focus on their work - pointing the 'scope at stuff - and not worry about writing elegant/concise/reusable/succinct/$(feelgood adjective) code. I could understand it being used that way if it were for a limited scope (no pun intended) of operations, such as direction, focus, camera/sensor settings, etc. I'm sure they're not using JS to control thrusters or calculate trajectories.
- lelandbatey 10y agoThere are plenty of languages that provide that same benefit of straightforwardness while also lacking warts and being even easier to embed; for example Lua, which was designed with express purpose of simplicity and ease of embedding. The real answer is probably that in 2003 JS looked more interesting/good enough that it was chosen in this case.
- semaphoreP 10y agoActually, us astronomers will never have to script anything with JS. They'll give us a GUI which will limit what we can do to strictly valid commands: e.g. point the telescope at this position in the sky and observe using this instrument for this much time.