6 ms·

I think what this demonstrates is the patch upon patch nature that Javascript has taken on. Something we already knew, but with ES2015+, was kind of hidden from

I think what this demonstrates is the patch upon patch nature that Javascript has taken on. Something we already knew, but with ES2015+, was kind of hidden from us. That isn't so say the new ES revisions aren't significant improvements, but just that they still rely on this old infrastructure.

underwater 7y ago
An alternative way of looking at things: the dynamic nature of JavaScript and ability to monkey-patch things like this has let the language move forward. The fact that I can use classes, block scopes, const and let, new array methods, decorators, etc. without having to wait for every client to update to JacaScript N+1 is pretty sweet.
- IgorPartola 7y ago
  That’s the job of a compiler/transpiler though, i.e. praising assembly for the benefits that C provides. JavaScript/ES is just now getting features that other languages have enjoyed for one or more decades because JS people have discovered the features and how to build the tooling. So good for JS for finally getting these basics, just wish it happened about 15 years ago.
  - Klathmon 7y ago
    I hate this trope that "js people just discovered this feature and now rush to get it included". Not only is it not true in many cases (I've been using pattern matching for years in other functional languages and I'm anxiously hoping the proposal will get closer to inclusion in JS, but I'm sure if/when it lands I'll be told about how sad it is that I just learned about this feature when others have had it for decades...), but it's also pointlessly "holier than thou". If JS doesn't have a feature, people say that they want it. Once it gets it, another crowd complains about how they should have had it 15 years ago. The fact is that there wasn't much of a need for something like globalThis 15 years ago. We had window, and that's all that we needed. Then we got global with node, and then self in workers, and then JS started getting more usage in embedded contexts with none of that. A problem was found, a proposal created and refined, a polyfill made, and finally it's going to be part of the language. This is progress, this is the maintainers identifying and fixing a deficiency, only to be met with "who cares they should have done it years ago [when nobody was asking for it]". My point being there's just no need to say that. It doesn't contribute anything, it's just belittling the work of some very talented people who are making things that people are asking for in ways that don't break past code. That may not have been your intention, and I'm sorry for coming into this with a lot of baggage here, but it's just something that really gets under my skin and I've seen multiple TC39 people talk about how they avoid places like HN because of those kinds of attitudes, and I feel that everyone is missing out because of it.
    - lmm 7y ago
      People were asking for it. OCaml is the same age as JavaScript but had all these features from day 1. It's especially frustrating when JavaScript fans talk as though JavaScript had invented a language feature that in fact existed decades earlier, which frequently happens. It's worth being aware that JavaScript is (and always has been) a long way behind the language design state of the art. That informs people's choice of language (in cases where non-JS is an option - but in these days of transpilers, non-JS is always an option). It's not a reason for people to stop improving JavaScript if they find it useful to do so, but it may be a reason to switch away from JavaScript.
      - Klathmon 7y ago
        But you're building a strawman there. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that javascript invented these features (especially not this one! It's a reference to the global scope...). People are excited to have these features in their language, they may like the JS implementation better than others or vice versa, they may talk about how much it improves the language or how it's a detriment to the language to have it included, but I haven't seen anyone claim that "javascript invented this". It's fine to want to be aware that JS isn't "state of the art" in language design, but I really don't think anyone believes that it is. (and as an aside, I don't think I'd want to use a language that was state of the art as the base for a large application, because that means that there isn't much testing or prior art to build from) But that argument also misses the point. I'm happy to talk about the pros and cons of languages, I'm happy to discuss how erlang's message passing makes some things extremely easy to develop, how python's collections make many kinds of programming much easier to read. But bringing up how other languages have had a feature "years ago" once it's arrived in javascript isn't discussing pros and cons or offering reasons to switch, it's turning tools into sports teams where you are "rooting" for your favorite. If/when JS gets pattern matching, you can be your ass i'll be in that thread comparing it to ocaml's approach, or F#'s approach to see the differences and similarities, to see the benefits of each, to see how they all fit into each languages ecosystem. But I won't be exclaiming how it doesn't matter because "other languages had this years ago!", because it doesn't help anything, it doesn't give anyone information they can act on, it doesn't discuss tradeoffs, it is just downplaying the achievements of the people that helped make it a reality.
  - underwater 7y ago
    For many problems a transpiler is not sufficient. Array methods can be polyfilled because we can add arbitrary properties to Array.prototype. We can polyfilled things like Map and Set because classes are just functions attached to the global scope, so polyfills can be conditional.

underwater 7y ago

An alternative way of looking at things: the dynamic nature of JavaScript and ability to monkey-patch things like this has let the language move forward. The fact that I can use classes, block scopes, const and let, new array methods, decorators, etc. without having to wait for every client to update to JacaScript N+1 is pretty sweet.

IgorPartola 7y ago
That’s the job of a compiler/transpiler though, i.e. praising assembly for the benefits that C provides. JavaScript/ES is just now getting features that other languages have enjoyed for one or more decades because JS people have discovered the features and how to build the tooling. So good for JS for finally getting these basics, just wish it happened about 15 years ago.
- Klathmon 7y ago
  I hate this trope that "js people just discovered this feature and now rush to get it included". Not only is it not true in many cases (I've been using pattern matching for years in other functional languages and I'm anxiously hoping the proposal will get closer to inclusion in JS, but I'm sure if/when it lands I'll be told about how sad it is that I just learned about this feature when others have had it for decades...), but it's also pointlessly "holier than thou". If JS doesn't have a feature, people say that they want it. Once it gets it, another crowd complains about how they should have had it 15 years ago. The fact is that there wasn't much of a need for something like globalThis 15 years ago. We had window, and that's all that we needed. Then we got global with node, and then self in workers, and then JS started getting more usage in embedded contexts with none of that. A problem was found, a proposal created and refined, a polyfill made, and finally it's going to be part of the language. This is progress, this is the maintainers identifying and fixing a deficiency, only to be met with "who cares they should have done it years ago [when nobody was asking for it]". My point being there's just no need to say that. It doesn't contribute anything, it's just belittling the work of some very talented people who are making things that people are asking for in ways that don't break past code. That may not have been your intention, and I'm sorry for coming into this with a lot of baggage here, but it's just something that really gets under my skin and I've seen multiple TC39 people talk about how they avoid places like HN because of those kinds of attitudes, and I feel that everyone is missing out because of it.
  - lmm 7y ago
    People were asking for it. OCaml is the same age as JavaScript but had all these features from day 1. It's especially frustrating when JavaScript fans talk as though JavaScript had invented a language feature that in fact existed decades earlier, which frequently happens. It's worth being aware that JavaScript is (and always has been) a long way behind the language design state of the art. That informs people's choice of language (in cases where non-JS is an option - but in these days of transpilers, non-JS is always an option). It's not a reason for people to stop improving JavaScript if they find it useful to do so, but it may be a reason to switch away from JavaScript.
    - Klathmon 7y ago
      But you're building a strawman there. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that javascript invented these features (especially not this one! It's a reference to the global scope...). People are excited to have these features in their language, they may like the JS implementation better than others or vice versa, they may talk about how much it improves the language or how it's a detriment to the language to have it included, but I haven't seen anyone claim that "javascript invented this". It's fine to want to be aware that JS isn't "state of the art" in language design, but I really don't think anyone believes that it is. (and as an aside, I don't think I'd want to use a language that was state of the art as the base for a large application, because that means that there isn't much testing or prior art to build from) But that argument also misses the point. I'm happy to talk about the pros and cons of languages, I'm happy to discuss how erlang's message passing makes some things extremely easy to develop, how python's collections make many kinds of programming much easier to read. But bringing up how other languages have had a feature "years ago" once it's arrived in javascript isn't discussing pros and cons or offering reasons to switch, it's turning tools into sports teams where you are "rooting" for your favorite. If/when JS gets pattern matching, you can be your ass i'll be in that thread comparing it to ocaml's approach, or F#'s approach to see the differences and similarities, to see the benefits of each, to see how they all fit into each languages ecosystem. But I won't be exclaiming how it doesn't matter because "other languages had this years ago!", because it doesn't help anything, it doesn't give anyone information they can act on, it doesn't discuss tradeoffs, it is just downplaying the achievements of the people that helped make it a reality.
- underwater 7y ago
  For many problems a transpiler is not sufficient. Array methods can be polyfilled because we can add arbitrary properties to Array.prototype. We can polyfilled things like Map and Set because classes are just functions attached to the global scope, so polyfills can be conditional.