4 ms·

One can easily imagine it going at least two ways: in one, Lisp becomes as much a lingua franca as Javascript is; in the other, people don't flock to Lisp as t

by JadeNB 7y ago

One can easily imagine it going at least two ways: in one, Lisp becomes as much a lingua franca as Javascript is; in the other, people don't flock to Lisp as they did to Javascript, and so the programmatic web never takes off (which may or may not be a bad thing).

kryptiskt 7y ago
People go with the VBScript support in Internet Explorer instead, and later Netscape implements support for that for compatibility and in 2020 we are all programming BASIC.
- invalidOrTaken 7y ago
  I had a job in 2011 writing VBScript. As far as I know that company is still around This comment should not be interpreted as me saying "Wow, it was such a great language that it was still relevant in 2011!" It is more of a caution:kludges never die.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Plenty of people write Basic as Office macros, VB.NET, Xojo or Blitz.
enitihas 7y ago
It is almost impossible to see a world where people wouldn't flock to a language due to pragmatic reasons. People didn't go to js because it was good, just because it was the only option. If you don't, your competitor would, and likely put you out of business. People didn't make so many Objective c apps because of it's capabilities, but because it was what you use to make iOS apps, and that's where the money was. There is no chance the programmatic web would have ever depended on programmer's preference for language.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > If you don't, your competitor would, and likely put you out of business. I think you're looking farther along the curve than I am. Before businesses considered the possibilities of the Javascript-ified web, they had to be shown the possibilities by non-commercial hackers, who aren't worried about their competitors putting them out of business, but are driven only by the desire to play with cool toys. The browser provided an easy-to-program source of cool toys. If it had been harder to program, then the hobbyists who drive later trends might have looked elsewhere, and we wouldn't have the do-everything-through-rich-Web-interfaces world in which we live today, but would find the default interface … somewhere else; who knows? (That is, I don't think anyone would ever say "I won't use the programmatic web because of Lisp; I'll hold out for Javascript", but I can imagine someone, if Javascript didn't exist, saying "it's too hard to innovate quickly in Lisp; let's find another platform where it's easier.") None of this is a prediction, just a reminder that where we are now isn't inevitably, but the end result of many many small nudges, some of which we recognise and some of which we don't.
  - enitihas 7y ago
    > The browser provided an easy-to-program source of cool toys. If it had been harder to program. It was harder to program though. The amount of gotchas in JavaScript are so high compared to many other popular mainstream programming languages of even that era, and not to mention hou could only use it in a browser, which was severely lacking in functionality compared to native APIs. So the hackers who wanted cool toys already had far better options, which goes to show even if js was much worse it couldn't have done badly. Although there is not much data that I am aware of about the early websites making cool things with javascript, if we take iOS and Objective C, it wasn't cool hackers filling the app stores with cool toys, but real businesses looking to make money. Hell, even Mosiac and Netscape didn't want to be cool toys, theh wanted to be real businesses making lots of money.
- cat199 7y ago
  > just because it was the only option initially, it wasn't - MS had vbscript in IE js as 'the' browser language is a consequence of the browser wars

by JadeNB 7y ago

kryptiskt 7y ago

People go with the VBScript support in Internet Explorer instead, and later Netscape implements support for that for compatibility and in 2020 we are all programming BASIC.

invalidOrTaken 7y ago
I had a job in 2011 writing VBScript. As far as I know that company is still around This comment should not be interpreted as me saying "Wow, it was such a great language that it was still relevant in 2011!" It is more of a caution:kludges never die.
pjmlp 7y ago
Plenty of people write Basic as Office macros, VB.NET, Xojo or Blitz.

enitihas 7y ago

It is almost impossible to see a world where people wouldn't flock to a language due to pragmatic reasons. People didn't go to js because it was good, just because it was the only option. If you don't, your competitor would, and likely put you out of business. People didn't make so many Objective c apps because of it's capabilities, but because it was what you use to make iOS apps, and that's where the money was. There is no chance the programmatic web would have ever depended on programmer's preference for language.

JadeNB 7y ago
> If you don't, your competitor would, and likely put you out of business. I think you're looking farther along the curve than I am. Before businesses considered the possibilities of the Javascript-ified web, they had to be shown the possibilities by non-commercial hackers, who aren't worried about their competitors putting them out of business, but are driven only by the desire to play with cool toys. The browser provided an easy-to-program source of cool toys. If it had been harder to program, then the hobbyists who drive later trends might have looked elsewhere, and we wouldn't have the do-everything-through-rich-Web-interfaces world in which we live today, but would find the default interface … somewhere else; who knows? (That is, I don't think anyone would ever say "I won't use the programmatic web because of Lisp; I'll hold out for Javascript", but I can imagine someone, if Javascript didn't exist, saying "it's too hard to innovate quickly in Lisp; let's find another platform where it's easier.") None of this is a prediction, just a reminder that where we are now isn't inevitably, but the end result of many many small nudges, some of which we recognise and some of which we don't.
- enitihas 7y ago
  > The browser provided an easy-to-program source of cool toys. If it had been harder to program. It was harder to program though. The amount of gotchas in JavaScript are so high compared to many other popular mainstream programming languages of even that era, and not to mention hou could only use it in a browser, which was severely lacking in functionality compared to native APIs. So the hackers who wanted cool toys already had far better options, which goes to show even if js was much worse it couldn't have done badly. Although there is not much data that I am aware of about the early websites making cool things with javascript, if we take iOS and Objective C, it wasn't cool hackers filling the app stores with cool toys, but real businesses looking to make money. Hell, even Mosiac and Netscape didn't want to be cool toys, theh wanted to be real businesses making lots of money.
cat199 7y ago
> just because it was the only option initially, it wasn't - MS had vbscript in IE js as 'the' browser language is a consequence of the browser wars