5 ms·

It's why JS won. No, JS won because the web won. There's a web browser on almost every computer out there. If you write your software in JS, you can run it j

by panic 9y ago

It's why JS won. No, JS won because the web won. There's a web browser on almost every computer out there. If you write your software in JS, you can run it just by following a link to a URL. That doesn't have anything to do with JavaScript's absurd module ecosystem.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Ya'll can thumb your nose at JS all you want. Haters gonna hate. I'm starting to question whether this HN mindset is healthy. People get trapped in this vortex of us constantly chanting about how horrible JS is, and totally ignoring all the incredible things we can do now. It's worth pushing back against this echo chamber and reminding people that you now have the power to grant wishes on command. Someone wishes X exists, and for most values of X, if it's technology and you can shove it into a web browser, you can make X appear out of thin air. Like, within two weeks. How incredible is that? And it's mostly due to JS, not in spite of it. Let's put it this way. Think of your favorite language. Favorite paradigm, whatever. All the shit you hate about JS, picture the exact opposite of that. Now imagine that the web was entirely built around that. Surprise: now everyone would hate exactly whatever you love. It would've grown all that hair and all those warts you currently despise about JS. It's what the world does. So when people knock on JS, it's getting much harder to take this stuff seriously. I've been a dev for over a decade and have been down a dozen rabbit holes, from C++ template metaprogramming to .NET nonsense to elisp verbosity to hardcore functional + immutable paradigms. Loved all of them, each in their own way. What we have now with JS is simply incredible from a raw "get shit done" perspective.
- panic 9y ago
  Here's an implementation of "deep equality" -- a relatively common operation on composite values -- in JS. It has millions of downloads in just the last week: https://github.com/substack/node-deep-equal/blob/master/index.js https://github.com/substack/node-deep-equal/blob/master/inde... It includes special cases for dates, takes O(n log n) time in the number of keys, and has suspicious comments like, "I've managed to break Object.keys through screwy arguments passing. Converting to array solves the problem." There are 15 open issues and 15 open pull requests. A sane language would have this operation built-in.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    And yet, this is a perfect example of "this does not matter." Pick a project. Think of a website you want to make. At no point during that are you going to be stonewalled by "Man, if only I wasn't forced to spend the last 4 hours debugging this weird deep equality issue. I could've gotten so much more done!" You can take that information and use it however you want. It's the truth. It's up to you to either reject the notion or integrate it into your mindset and abandon the tendency to cling to idealisms. Ivory tower development simply does not happen in reality, and I say this as someone who spent a couple years trying to build an ivory tower Lisp. I know it's not coming across at all, but I really identify with your mindset and acutely feel your pain. This was a major mental hurdle that I had to force myself to overcome. I'm saying, it's possible, and the only thing you have to do is to choose to do it. Let go. Realize that it doesn't matter. It's worth the benefits. You can do so much more. I was afraid that "letting go" would translate into "now I'm part of the problem too." But it turns out the opposite is true. It's very powerful that you have a background that most JS devs lack. Because they often rabbithole themselves into complexity, and you can come along and do something simple that no one else thought to stop and do. But you can do all of that while still embracing the wider ecosystem. It's not an either-or. You can help bring sanity to what would otherwise be a ball of hair. But the way to be in that position is to jump in and churn churn churn until you've used Vue and React+Redux and understand the concepts and tradeoffs.
    - shakna 9y ago
      > Pick a project. Think of a website you want to make. At no point during that are you going to be stonewalled by "Man, if only I wasn't forced to spend the last 4 hours debugging this weird deep equality issue. I could've gotten so much more done!" I have faced this on the job. About three abstraction layers deep in a Backbone app. It took me two days to trace the exact cause and find a way to implement a better check, that wouldn't make things respond in unexpected ways. > It's up to you to either reject the notion or integrate it into your mindset and abandon the tendency to cling to idealisms. JavaScript is terrible. It is not the product of academic research like Smalltalk or Haskell. I can accept it is the only tool available for the job, and continually look at all the solutions for that particular issue, and I will keep doing that. I can use JavaScript, and I can write it. Usually my code is simpler and faster, because it takes me much longer to write anything, because of how aware I am of the side-effects. My employers in the past have liked the results that has produced. But I will never enjoy writing it. It is a language that is difficult in ways that reveal it's sloppy roots, and spill it's implementation details. Much of the time JS feels like working with UB in C, except it is actually detailed to act that strangely, in the spec. Just an example that has always stuck with me, this is valid JS: [][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]][([][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+([][[]]+[])[+!+[]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]+([][[]]+[])[+[]]+([][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]]((![]+[])[+!+[]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(![]+[][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]])[!+[]+!+[]+[+[]]]+[+!+[]]+(!![]+[][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]])[!+[]+!+[]+[+[]]])() Pretending it's puss-filled core is wonderful is going to lead to nothing but burn out, but so is hating every procedure you write in it. It's a tool. It's sharp on both sides, which can lead to a lot of blood-letting if you aren't careful. But it is still the best carving tool we have on hand.
- Flimm 9y ago
  It's true that the most well-known languages are likely to attract the most criticism by virtue of being so well-known. It's true that Javascript and its ecosystem has improved. However, it's also true that there remains some warts to Javascript (for instance, modules are not there yet). It's not fair at all to say "all of these concerns are not concerns" just because you have grown to appreciate all the advantages that Javascript offers. That's being silly, sillysaurus3.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  > totally ignoring all the incredible things we can do now. Any Turing tar-pit can do incredible things. And when it has a monopoly on its own niche, of course incredible things happen.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
sametmax 9y ago
Exactly. JS won because it's the only access to the most awesome and popular dev plateform in the word. JS has un unfair monopoly. Just give us a decent language on FF, Chrome et Edge, and everybody will stop using JS withing 5 years.
- Santosh83 9y ago
  WebAssembly aims to do that.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    You will probably not have Python or Ruby on the client with web assembly. Shipping their runtime is several Mo. Not to mention the stdlib (which is part of the appeal of those languages). Paying that cost upfront, without even a framework or any user feature yet is way too much. We already have bloated webpages with only JS...
    - rapind 9y ago
      Opal is actually pretty nice and usable as a JS transpiler already. I suspect they'll be targeting WASM at some point. I do think however the current trend is OCaml / Haskell influenced languages like Elm, Purescript, Reason, etc. WASM is only going to make them better. The king is dead, long live the king!
    - root_axis 9y ago
      This seems like a solvable problem: signed browser run-time caching.
      - sametmax 9y ago
        And then suddenly I got 30Go of cache on my hard drive because of all the sites that are so smart. And limiting the size of it will just render it useless as everybody will just tried to add to it, erasing the existing cache. But even without that, then chances that you have exactly the same build than somebody else in cache is very weak unless it's very popular. And to get it popular means a lot of people has to download it, taking the several Mo hit download on first load. And most users will just quit the page before that, thinking it doesn't work. The solution would be for browsers to stop the madness and decide by community to adopt a new standard with a decent language for the web. Be it Ruby, Lua, Python, at this point I don't care. I'm partial to Python, but I won't fight for it if it means I can get anything with a real stdlib, good builtins, namespaces and a readable syntax.
emodendroket 9y ago
The joke I always hear is that people are drawn to node because after learning all of JavaScript's weird quirks the people who've mastered it assume all languages are like that and never want to learn another language again.

by panic 9y ago

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Ya'll can thumb your nose at JS all you want. Haters gonna hate. I'm starting to question whether this HN mindset is healthy. People get trapped in this vortex of us constantly chanting about how horrible JS is, and totally ignoring all the incredible things we can do now. It's worth pushing back against this echo chamber and reminding people that you now have the power to grant wishes on command. Someone wishes X exists, and for most values of X, if it's technology and you can shove it into a web browser, you can make X appear out of thin air. Like, within two weeks. How incredible is that? And it's mostly due to JS, not in spite of it. Let's put it this way. Think of your favorite language. Favorite paradigm, whatever. All the shit you hate about JS, picture the exact opposite of that. Now imagine that the web was entirely built around that. Surprise: now everyone would hate exactly whatever you love. It would've grown all that hair and all those warts you currently despise about JS. It's what the world does. So when people knock on JS, it's getting much harder to take this stuff seriously. I've been a dev for over a decade and have been down a dozen rabbit holes, from C++ template metaprogramming to .NET nonsense to elisp verbosity to hardcore functional + immutable paradigms. Loved all of them, each in their own way. What we have now with JS is simply incredible from a raw "get shit done" perspective.

panic 9y ago
Here's an implementation of "deep equality" -- a relatively common operation on composite values -- in JS. It has millions of downloads in just the last week: https://github.com/substack/node-deep-equal/blob/master/index.js https://github.com/substack/node-deep-equal/blob/master/inde... It includes special cases for dates, takes O(n log n) time in the number of keys, and has suspicious comments like, "I've managed to break Object.keys through screwy arguments passing. Converting to array solves the problem." There are 15 open issues and 15 open pull requests. A sane language would have this operation built-in.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  And yet, this is a perfect example of "this does not matter." Pick a project. Think of a website you want to make. At no point during that are you going to be stonewalled by "Man, if only I wasn't forced to spend the last 4 hours debugging this weird deep equality issue. I could've gotten so much more done!" You can take that information and use it however you want. It's the truth. It's up to you to either reject the notion or integrate it into your mindset and abandon the tendency to cling to idealisms. Ivory tower development simply does not happen in reality, and I say this as someone who spent a couple years trying to build an ivory tower Lisp. I know it's not coming across at all, but I really identify with your mindset and acutely feel your pain. This was a major mental hurdle that I had to force myself to overcome. I'm saying, it's possible, and the only thing you have to do is to choose to do it. Let go. Realize that it doesn't matter. It's worth the benefits. You can do so much more. I was afraid that "letting go" would translate into "now I'm part of the problem too." But it turns out the opposite is true. It's very powerful that you have a background that most JS devs lack. Because they often rabbithole themselves into complexity, and you can come along and do something simple that no one else thought to stop and do. But you can do all of that while still embracing the wider ecosystem. It's not an either-or. You can help bring sanity to what would otherwise be a ball of hair. But the way to be in that position is to jump in and churn churn churn until you've used Vue and React+Redux and understand the concepts and tradeoffs.
  - shakna 9y ago
    > Pick a project. Think of a website you want to make. At no point during that are you going to be stonewalled by "Man, if only I wasn't forced to spend the last 4 hours debugging this weird deep equality issue. I could've gotten so much more done!" I have faced this on the job. About three abstraction layers deep in a Backbone app. It took me two days to trace the exact cause and find a way to implement a better check, that wouldn't make things respond in unexpected ways. > It's up to you to either reject the notion or integrate it into your mindset and abandon the tendency to cling to idealisms. JavaScript is terrible. It is not the product of academic research like Smalltalk or Haskell. I can accept it is the only tool available for the job, and continually look at all the solutions for that particular issue, and I will keep doing that. I can use JavaScript, and I can write it. Usually my code is simpler and faster, because it takes me much longer to write anything, because of how aware I am of the side-effects. My employers in the past have liked the results that has produced. But I will never enjoy writing it. It is a language that is difficult in ways that reveal it's sloppy roots, and spill it's implementation details. Much of the time JS feels like working with UB in C, except it is actually detailed to act that strangely, in the spec. Just an example that has always stuck with me, this is valid JS: [][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]][([][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+([][[]]+[])[+!+[]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]+([][[]]+[])[+[]]+([][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]]((![]+[])[+!+[]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(![]+[][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]])[!+[]+!+[]+[+[]]]+[+!+[]]+(!![]+[][(![]+[])[+[]]+([![]]+[][[]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]])[!+[]+!+[]+[+[]]])() Pretending it's puss-filled core is wonderful is going to lead to nothing but burn out, but so is hating every procedure you write in it. It's a tool. It's sharp on both sides, which can lead to a lot of blood-letting if you aren't careful. But it is still the best carving tool we have on hand.
Flimm 9y ago
It's true that the most well-known languages are likely to attract the most criticism by virtue of being so well-known. It's true that Javascript and its ecosystem has improved. However, it's also true that there remains some warts to Javascript (for instance, modules are not there yet). It's not fair at all to say "all of these concerns are not concerns" just because you have grown to appreciate all the advantages that Javascript offers. That's being silly, sillysaurus3.
loup-vaillant 9y ago
> totally ignoring all the incredible things we can do now. Any Turing tar-pit can do incredible things. And when it has a monopoly on its own niche, of course incredible things happen.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

sametmax 9y ago

Exactly. JS won because it's the only access to the most awesome and popular dev plateform in the word. JS has un unfair monopoly. Just give us a decent language on FF, Chrome et Edge, and everybody will stop using JS withing 5 years.

Santosh83 9y ago
WebAssembly aims to do that.
- sametmax 9y ago
  You will probably not have Python or Ruby on the client with web assembly. Shipping their runtime is several Mo. Not to mention the stdlib (which is part of the appeal of those languages). Paying that cost upfront, without even a framework or any user feature yet is way too much. We already have bloated webpages with only JS...
  - rapind 9y ago
    Opal is actually pretty nice and usable as a JS transpiler already. I suspect they'll be targeting WASM at some point. I do think however the current trend is OCaml / Haskell influenced languages like Elm, Purescript, Reason, etc. WASM is only going to make them better. The king is dead, long live the king!
  - root_axis 9y ago
    This seems like a solvable problem: signed browser run-time caching.
    - sametmax 9y ago
      And then suddenly I got 30Go of cache on my hard drive because of all the sites that are so smart. And limiting the size of it will just render it useless as everybody will just tried to add to it, erasing the existing cache. But even without that, then chances that you have exactly the same build than somebody else in cache is very weak unless it's very popular. And to get it popular means a lot of people has to download it, taking the several Mo hit download on first load. And most users will just quit the page before that, thinking it doesn't work. The solution would be for browsers to stop the madness and decide by community to adopt a new standard with a decent language for the web. Be it Ruby, Lua, Python, at this point I don't care. I'm partial to Python, but I won't fight for it if it means I can get anything with a real stdlib, good builtins, namespaces and a readable syntax.

emodendroket 9y ago

The joke I always hear is that people are drawn to node because after learning all of JavaScript's weird quirks the people who've mastered it assume all languages are like that and never want to learn another language again.