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I really like the format of this article. From my very brief experience with Ada it seemed like a very well designed language to me. It's a shame it didn't get

by bibyte 8y ago

I really like the format of this article. From my very brief experience with Ada it seemed like a very well designed language to me. It's a shame it didn't get popular enough to compete with C and C++.

0xDEEPFAC 8y ago
Yea Ada 95 was set to take off in some sort of way, but Java came out just a bit earlier and crushed it with publicity - and then Javascript was "birthed" in 2 weeks and ruined software forever..
- afiori 8y ago
  It is fair to mention that when javascript was created it was indeed the best tool for the job
  - 0xDEEPFAC 8y ago
    Thats very subjective and I respectfully disagree : ). It was indeed literally created in the order of weeks (not even a full month) and it morphed into a monster quickly and punished users with its many half baked ideas and short-sided design. http://blogopod.com/image/2014/javascript-comparison-table.png http://blogopod.com/image/2014/javascript-comparison-table.p... The software world could easily go without javascript and be a less toxic, buzzfilled, electron bloated swarm.
  - gambler 8y ago
    If browsers used SmallTalk we would leapfrog about 30 years of reinventing the broken wheel and everyone would be better off (except maybe a few overpaid framework experts).
    - kbenson 8y ago
      Assuming there would have been the same rate of adoption. I don't know, is it as easy to learn SmallTalk and do small tasks with it? The existing ecosystem may have been pretty good, all things considered. Fast ramp-up, with eventual shift into supporting bytecode efficiently so any language can run. Would you rather be coding around the inconsistencies in the SmallTalk implementations of Microsoft, Google and Mozilla, or just delivering a bytecode package of your code in whatever your favorite SmallTalk implementation (or any other language) is?
      - fao_ 8y ago
        > is it as easy to learn SmallTalk and do small tasks with it? BASIC would be better than Javascript. C would be better than Javascript. Literally anything else, would have been better than Javascript. http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/javascript/excerpts/javascript-good-parts/bad-parts.html http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/javascript/excerpts/javascr... https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat http://www.javascriptgotchas.com/gotchas/common-javascript-errors-and-mistakes.html http://www.javascriptgotchas.com/gotchas/common-javascript-e... https://medium.com/javascript-non-grata/javascript-is-a-dysfunctional-programming-language-a1f4866e186f https://medium.com/javascript-non-grata/javascript-is-a-dysf... https://whydoesitsuck.com/why-does-javascript-suck/ https://whydoesitsuck.com/why-does-javascript-suck/ https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2015/12/09/javascript-the-bad-parts-with-john-k-paul/ https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2015/12/09/javascript-t... http://blog.thefirehoseproject.com/posts/why-im-angry-at-people-who-only-learn-javascript/ http://blog.thefirehoseproject.com/posts/why-im-angry-at-peo...
        kbenson 8y ago
        > C would be better than Javascript. Yeah, I don't think so. No matter how bad Javascript is, C would be way worse. Every problem of C ported to the web so all those bad practices that are mostly harmless because they are usually in simple programs with no network access when local program all of a sudden being entirely exposed.

by bibyte 8y ago

0xDEEPFAC 8y ago

Yea Ada 95 was set to take off in some sort of way, but Java came out just a bit earlier and crushed it with publicity - and then Javascript was "birthed" in 2 weeks and ruined software forever..

afiori 8y ago
It is fair to mention that when javascript was created it was indeed the best tool for the job
- 0xDEEPFAC 8y ago
  Thats very subjective and I respectfully disagree : ). It was indeed literally created in the order of weeks (not even a full month) and it morphed into a monster quickly and punished users with its many half baked ideas and short-sided design. http://blogopod.com/image/2014/javascript-comparison-table.png http://blogopod.com/image/2014/javascript-comparison-table.p... The software world could easily go without javascript and be a less toxic, buzzfilled, electron bloated swarm.
- gambler 8y ago
  If browsers used SmallTalk we would leapfrog about 30 years of reinventing the broken wheel and everyone would be better off (except maybe a few overpaid framework experts).
  - kbenson 8y ago
    Assuming there would have been the same rate of adoption. I don't know, is it as easy to learn SmallTalk and do small tasks with it? The existing ecosystem may have been pretty good, all things considered. Fast ramp-up, with eventual shift into supporting bytecode efficiently so any language can run. Would you rather be coding around the inconsistencies in the SmallTalk implementations of Microsoft, Google and Mozilla, or just delivering a bytecode package of your code in whatever your favorite SmallTalk implementation (or any other language) is?
    - fao_ 8y ago
      > is it as easy to learn SmallTalk and do small tasks with it? BASIC would be better than Javascript. C would be better than Javascript. Literally anything else, would have been better than Javascript. http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/javascript/excerpts/javascript-good-parts/bad-parts.html http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/javascript/excerpts/javascr... https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat http://www.javascriptgotchas.com/gotchas/common-javascript-errors-and-mistakes.html http://www.javascriptgotchas.com/gotchas/common-javascript-e... https://medium.com/javascript-non-grata/javascript-is-a-dysfunctional-programming-language-a1f4866e186f https://medium.com/javascript-non-grata/javascript-is-a-dysf... https://whydoesitsuck.com/why-does-javascript-suck/ https://whydoesitsuck.com/why-does-javascript-suck/ https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2015/12/09/javascript-the-bad-parts-with-john-k-paul/ https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2015/12/09/javascript-t... http://blog.thefirehoseproject.com/posts/why-im-angry-at-people-who-only-learn-javascript/ http://blog.thefirehoseproject.com/posts/why-im-angry-at-peo...
      - kbenson 8y ago
        > C would be better than Javascript. Yeah, I don't think so. No matter how bad Javascript is, C would be way worse. Every problem of C ported to the web so all those bad practices that are mostly harmless because they are usually in simple programs with no network access when local program all of a sudden being entirely exposed.