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JS is the new PHP. It's really popular (i.e. lots of n00bs) and not at all elegant, so the programmer elite regard it with derision. I also notice people often

JS is the new PHP. It's really popular (i.e. lots of n00bs) and not at all elegant, so the programmer elite regard it with derision. I also notice people often conflate the problems of overzealous browser-based scripting with JavaScript the programming language. This is pretty understandable since JavaScript has been the only browser scripting option for 2 decades, but those problems would exist no matter what options were available for browser scripting. It's a safe bet to assume that the problems would actually be much worse if JavaScript wasn't the only browser scripting language available since that would mean browser-based scripting would be more accessible to more programmers. In another 6-8 years when WASM targeting alternatives become more mature we will see a new explosion of browser scripting.

nwmcsween 7y ago
> not at all elegant, so the programmer elite regard it with derision Having both programmed PHP and Javascript extensively, PHP when it was first designed was absolute junk, functions were bucketed by strlen. Javascript at least had some semblance of sanity even with the wonky comparison mess and ===.
tuesdayrain 7y ago
> JS is the new PHP. It's really popular (i.e. lots of n00bs) and not at all elegant, so the programmer elite regard it with derision. I would love to find a language I consider more elegant than modern JS/TS. Haven't seen anything yet though. I also question your claim that it's the "elite" who regard JS with derision. Fabrice is presumably fine with it considering he spent valuable time writing an engine for it.
- root_axis 7y ago
  I don't think JS/TS is that bad, but it's certainly pretty far from elegant. TS adds decent type support which helps tamp down on dynamic complexity but rust, go, kotlin, c#, swift, ocml even java are all much more elegant languages. I realize that elegance is largely subjective so I won't belabor the point, but it's a pretty widely accepted subjective assessment.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  check out ocaml

nwmcsween 7y ago

> not at all elegant, so the programmer elite regard it with derision Having both programmed PHP and Javascript extensively, PHP when it was first designed was absolute junk, functions were bucketed by strlen. Javascript at least had some semblance of sanity even with the wonky comparison mess and ===.

tuesdayrain 7y ago

> JS is the new PHP. It's really popular (i.e. lots of n00bs) and not at all elegant, so the programmer elite regard it with derision. I would love to find a language I consider more elegant than modern JS/TS. Haven't seen anything yet though. I also question your claim that it's the "elite" who regard JS with derision. Fabrice is presumably fine with it considering he spent valuable time writing an engine for it.

root_axis 7y ago
I don't think JS/TS is that bad, but it's certainly pretty far from elegant. TS adds decent type support which helps tamp down on dynamic complexity but rust, go, kotlin, c#, swift, ocml even java are all much more elegant languages. I realize that elegance is largely subjective so I won't belabor the point, but it's a pretty widely accepted subjective assessment.
dmitrygr 7y ago
check out ocaml