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> SpiderBasic is a compiler which generates optimized JavaScript, which needs a modern browser to run What's old is new again. Earlier versions of Internet Exp
by TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> SpiderBasic is a compiler which generates optimized JavaScript, which needs a modern browser to run
What's old is new again. Earlier versions of Internet Explorer worked with Visual Basic Script. You enclosed Visual Basic within a script tag and a language attribute of "VBScript". It did not transpile to Javascript, however.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBScript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBScript
As I recall, you could debug VBScript by attaching a running IE process to VisualStudio. Breakpoints, instruction stepping, etc.
That was light years ahead of Javascript debugging. Of course, later FireBug and DevTools changed that.
But the original intent of the script tag was to be language agnostic.
- billyhoffman 6y agoMy favorite thing about VBScript is how long it stayed around in IE. If it was IE6, ok, you could forgive it. But in a limited form it was there until IE10. IE8 and IE9 would try and be "smart" and would figure out text was VBScript and execute it, even without a "lang" attribute. In fact, I used VBScript in some XSS attacks because it often evaded security filters due to how different the syntax was from JavaScript. It was also case insensitive, which helped it survive mutations on the input. VBScript and other proprietary web nonsense the browser makers put into HTML/JS/CSS during the browser wars (looking at you HTML+TIME) created a ton of remotely accessible and poorly implemented surface to attack.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoDo you mean the TIME tag/element in html? What are the vulnerabilities with it? Asking out of genuine curiosity...