4 ms·

> Back in 2005, the company started migrating those apps from Fortran and C/C++ to server-side JavaScript, with client-side JavaScript arriving around 2012 Oka

> Back in 2005, the company started migrating those apps from Fortran and C/C++ to server-side JavaScript, with client-side JavaScript arriving around 2012 Okay, I need another article about why in 2005 they chose to rewrite everything to server side JavaScript? That seems like, I don't want to say a bad decision that also led to all the issues and effort this article describes, but it kinda seems like it. In any case, it seems like an odd choice to make, especially in 2005, and especially coming from a fortran/c++ code base. So would love to hear about that and a retro on it.

robpalmer 6y ago
Yes, you're right the JS@Bloomberg origin story deserves to be told in full. Probably by Andrew Paprocki. SpiderMonkey has a starring role. Until then this is as much as I can share right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25068119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25068119 Also to be clear, we don't have a language monoculture. The app layer and hundreds of services use JS/TS. But the majority of the backend remains C++.
- didibus 6y ago
  That's an interesting take. I'm now a Clojure programmer, so I totally understand the importance of a tight feedback loop. I guess in 2005 Lisp would have still been considered too "different" even though it had a longer history of backend development compared to JavaScript and an even tighter loop? I'd be very interested in an origin story. The emphasis on tight feedback loop is very novel for the time I feel, over going with Java for example, which could have been a middleground between feedback loop and type safety with much more tooling available at the time. And now with bringing types back in, slowing down the build times again, hurting the feedback loop, but it seems safety has now been favored over it, was it a change of heart, what lead to that? Anyways I'll patiently await a maybe blog post about it :) Thanks for the right up here, was very fascinating.
addicted 6y ago
I’d say you’re very wrong. Having worked there the JS ecosystem was a tremendous advantage. It’s also important to keep in mind that Bloomberg is very willing to have their best developers go ahead and build actual tooling at the compilers (and language) levels to resolve issues they may face. This occasionally leads to issues when they start diverging from the mainstream too much, but they’re also good about then stepping in and pivoting back to the mainstream development branches, which is kind of what’s happening in this article.
- didibus 6y ago
  Sorry, I didn't mean to criticize, more so, I find that choice (in 2005) very surprising. So I'm just curious why would it have been made and how that played out. > Having worked there the JS ecosystem was a tremendous advantage How so? And to maybe ground my question, in 2005 I'd have expected a switch to Java, C# or Scala. So what advantages were there compared to those for JavaScript? > It’s also important to keep in mind that Bloomberg is very willing to have their best developers go ahead and build actual tooling at the compilers (and language) levels to resolve issues they may face That's awesome, but from my read of the article, seems like a lot of fighting to rebuild things that Java just has. And now this whole move to TypeScript to backfill in types, again, it appears to me like maybe if they'd gone with Java, much less time would have been needed on the devs building their own tooling, compilers and doing massive project migrations.

robpalmer 6y ago

Yes, you're right the JS@Bloomberg origin story deserves to be told in full. Probably by Andrew Paprocki. SpiderMonkey has a starring role. Until then this is as much as I can share right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25068119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25068119 Also to be clear, we don't have a language monoculture. The app layer and hundreds of services use JS/TS. But the majority of the backend remains C++.

didibus 6y ago
That's an interesting take. I'm now a Clojure programmer, so I totally understand the importance of a tight feedback loop. I guess in 2005 Lisp would have still been considered too "different" even though it had a longer history of backend development compared to JavaScript and an even tighter loop? I'd be very interested in an origin story. The emphasis on tight feedback loop is very novel for the time I feel, over going with Java for example, which could have been a middleground between feedback loop and type safety with much more tooling available at the time. And now with bringing types back in, slowing down the build times again, hurting the feedback loop, but it seems safety has now been favored over it, was it a change of heart, what lead to that? Anyways I'll patiently await a maybe blog post about it :) Thanks for the right up here, was very fascinating.

addicted 6y ago

I’d say you’re very wrong. Having worked there the JS ecosystem was a tremendous advantage. It’s also important to keep in mind that Bloomberg is very willing to have their best developers go ahead and build actual tooling at the compilers (and language) levels to resolve issues they may face. This occasionally leads to issues when they start diverging from the mainstream too much, but they’re also good about then stepping in and pivoting back to the mainstream development branches, which is kind of what’s happening in this article.

didibus 6y ago
Sorry, I didn't mean to criticize, more so, I find that choice (in 2005) very surprising. So I'm just curious why would it have been made and how that played out. > Having worked there the JS ecosystem was a tremendous advantage How so? And to maybe ground my question, in 2005 I'd have expected a switch to Java, C# or Scala. So what advantages were there compared to those for JavaScript? > It’s also important to keep in mind that Bloomberg is very willing to have their best developers go ahead and build actual tooling at the compilers (and language) levels to resolve issues they may face That's awesome, but from my read of the article, seems like a lot of fighting to rebuild things that Java just has. And now this whole move to TypeScript to backfill in types, again, it appears to me like maybe if they'd gone with Java, much less time would have been needed on the devs building their own tooling, compilers and doing massive project migrations.