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>boo boo do my job for me >Then I see JavaScript and Node.js What's wrong with this? The underlying architectural patterns and abstractions you should be able

>boo boo do my job for me >Then I see JavaScript and Node.js What's wrong with this? The underlying architectural patterns and abstractions you should be able to pick out and apply to your technology of choice.

hurril 6y ago
Look. My criticism would be the same with 8086 assembler as his language of choice. Yours too. Then where would we stand do you think? I'm just sick of people wasting a lot of energy on a sub-par language for things that could be of interest to a lot of people. People choose JavaScript to demonstrate monads for god's sake. Why? This is an: I have a hammer-strategy and that is what I am calling out. I write in a number of different languages (Java, Scala, F#, Haskell, C, C++, Rust, Idris, OCaml, Lisp, some dabbling in assembly) and they each have a profile when it comes to what they are able to present. The purer ML-dialects/ languages are a very good fit for compiler work. Java to show off, maybe, enterprisy and legacy patterns. Scala as a more familiar way of getting at pure functional programming for those that don't want to start off with Haskell. C++ for those of us that want to read about games. Rust for a lot of different things (that someone wants to re-write.) Idris to talk about some very advanced type systems in a way that is code rather than logic equations. JavaScript? Wtf does that present? How to use four layers of dependency resolution? How to make one page-applications with the highest number of enterprise patterns outside of J2EE anno 2001? It's not a serious choice.
- lllr_finger 6y ago
  > they each have a profile Absolutely true that languages are built to fulfill specific roles and have associated trade-offs. I think you answered your own question - JavaScript's strengths are being very widespread in current software development and having a minimal syntax/type system. IMO it can be a good language for MVPs/POCs and serve as a higher form of pseudocode. Perhaps the author's choice of JS as a way of reaching the widest possible audience and focusing on the concepts more than the implementation details. A relatively recent personal example: in working through some DSL and parser combinator examples in Rust, sometimes I get too distracted with lifetimes, annotations to deal with deeply recursive functions, etc. and just search for examples in a different language that allow me to focus on the concepts I'm trying to learn.
  - alex-lawrence 6y ago
    Since I am asked from time to time about the technology choices for my book, I decided to write a blog post to explain my reasoning: https://www.alex-lawrence.com/posts/why-my-book-uses-nodejs-and-javascript/ https://www.alex-lawrence.com/posts/why-my-book-uses-nodejs-... Some of my arguments pretty much match with your statements.
dang 6y ago
">boo boo do my job for me" I don't know where that came from but please don't make things up that look like quotes when they're not, and especially please don't use that as a snark trope. (If someone said that and you're actually quoting them and they edited it out, that's of course different.)

hurril 6y ago

Look. My criticism would be the same with 8086 assembler as his language of choice. Yours too. Then where would we stand do you think? I'm just sick of people wasting a lot of energy on a sub-par language for things that could be of interest to a lot of people. People choose JavaScript to demonstrate monads for god's sake. Why? This is an: I have a hammer-strategy and that is what I am calling out. I write in a number of different languages (Java, Scala, F#, Haskell, C, C++, Rust, Idris, OCaml, Lisp, some dabbling in assembly) and they each have a profile when it comes to what they are able to present. The purer ML-dialects/ languages are a very good fit for compiler work. Java to show off, maybe, enterprisy and legacy patterns. Scala as a more familiar way of getting at pure functional programming for those that don't want to start off with Haskell. C++ for those of us that want to read about games. Rust for a lot of different things (that someone wants to re-write.) Idris to talk about some very advanced type systems in a way that is code rather than logic equations. JavaScript? Wtf does that present? How to use four layers of dependency resolution? How to make one page-applications with the highest number of enterprise patterns outside of J2EE anno 2001? It's not a serious choice.

lllr_finger 6y ago
> they each have a profile Absolutely true that languages are built to fulfill specific roles and have associated trade-offs. I think you answered your own question - JavaScript's strengths are being very widespread in current software development and having a minimal syntax/type system. IMO it can be a good language for MVPs/POCs and serve as a higher form of pseudocode. Perhaps the author's choice of JS as a way of reaching the widest possible audience and focusing on the concepts more than the implementation details. A relatively recent personal example: in working through some DSL and parser combinator examples in Rust, sometimes I get too distracted with lifetimes, annotations to deal with deeply recursive functions, etc. and just search for examples in a different language that allow me to focus on the concepts I'm trying to learn.
- alex-lawrence 6y ago
  Since I am asked from time to time about the technology choices for my book, I decided to write a blog post to explain my reasoning: https://www.alex-lawrence.com/posts/why-my-book-uses-nodejs-and-javascript/ https://www.alex-lawrence.com/posts/why-my-book-uses-nodejs-... Some of my arguments pretty much match with your statements.

dang 6y ago

">boo boo do my job for me" I don't know where that came from but please don't make things up that look like quotes when they're not, and especially please don't use that as a snark trope. (If someone said that and you're actually quoting them and they edited it out, that's of course different.)