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Lisp was theory before it was code. Javascript was a fashionable imitation of another popular language dialect.
by rout39574 7y ago
Lisp was theory before it was code.
Javascript was a fashionable imitation of another popular language dialect.
- waterhouse 7y ago> In 1995, Netscape Communications recruited Brendan Eich with the goal of embedding the Scheme programming language into its Netscape Navigator.[16] Before he could get started, Netscape Communications collaborated with Sun Microsystems to include Sun's more static programming language, Java, in Netscape Navigator so as to compete with Microsoft for user adoption of Web technologies and platforms.[17] Netscape Communications then decided that the scripting language they wanted to create would complement Java and should have a similar syntax, which excluded adopting other languages such as Perl, Python, TCL, or Scheme. To defend the idea of JavaScript against competing proposals, the company needed a prototype. Eich wrote one in 10 days, in May 1995.
- BrendanEich 7y agoPerl, Python, Lua were not ready for embedding (unsafe FFIs, OS-dependent APIs) and would have been flash-frozen in early bad states. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1905155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1905155. Better that JS got the early bad state freezing and thawing (ES3 helped; ES5 was constructive and ES6 made JS pretty good). In early 1996, John Ousterhout stopped by to pitch Tcl/Tk, but it was too late. VBScript was coming, but JS in 1995 Netscape betas got on first and saved us from that dystopia.