4 ms·

I just want to say thank you for all your contributions to advancing web technologies. Javascript is still the only meaningful "Full Stack" platform and respon

I just want to say thank you for all your contributions to advancing web technologies. Javascript is still the only meaningful "Full Stack" platform and responsible for Billions of dollars in online business and Trillions of dollars in business value.

paulryanrogers 6y ago
Is JS really the fundamental, responsible part in all that business? Would it have been so much worse with a full page refresh per click?
- cccc4alll 6y ago
  What would handle the click on the client browser? How would you handle all the user events in the client browser? clicks, mouse overs, selections, etc. The Javascript platform is used to capture user behavior in the most efficient manner. This is the fundamental basis for all the online business processes and resulting business value.
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    Before JS browsers handled clicks without any 3rd party code. They were much more predictable and easier to reason about as a user. Those clicks usually translated to HTTP calls. What is so fundamental about business processes that they can't do an extra page render and HTTP call? (I imagine there may be some, I just can't see how they are so fundamental and on the order of billions.)
    - BrendanEich 6y ago
      Hotmail, Oddpost, Gmail, Gmaps, YouTube comments, etc etc.
      - paulryanrogers 6y ago
        Funny enough I hear Gmail's plain HTML version is preferable for some here on HN. Regardless I don't see how JS is fundamental to any of those services, not even Maps. Instead I suspect HTML would have become more feature rich sooner than HTML5. I also don't believe JS itself contributes significantly to the trillions of dollars involved in online business.
        BrendanEich 6y ago
        Why introduce counterfactuals? Flash existed, it had a full JS-variant language. It was taking over restaurant and other sites due to the IE monopoly stagnating HTML/CSS/JS. We don't need to appeal to an imaginary Turing-incomplete no-JS world to argue that JS didn't contribute enough. Flash was clearly the answer! Right?
        paulryanrogers 6y ago
        Turing incompetentes can be a feature IMO. Anyway, my point is that none of the interactivity as delivered by JS / ActiveX / Flash are themselves reason for all the money in online business. Before graphical browsers there were probably billions in transactions happening on computer networks. And likely would have grown to similar highs without the ability to run untrusted, 3rd party code on demand.
        BrendanEich 6y ago
        Go prove it. Meanwhile, back in reality, Flash was taking over and it did have better JS-variant, better graphics, etc. before we in the HTML5 WHATWG group got browsers upgraded. No-JS happy talk about better Turing-incomplete HTML is idle talk. Go on if you must, but I'll stop here. "I do not entertain hypotheticals. The world as it is is vexing enough." - Col. Stonehill, "True Grit"
        BrendanEich 6y ago
        Second reply, sorry — I meant to agree that Turing incomplete languages for things like bounded runtime / all-paths constant time algs are an underutilized toolset. They're coming back on Blockchain, also for browser compositor-thread scripting. But the pressure on the Web to be interactive enough vs. fat or old clients, never mind plugins, pushed not only JS but Java into the Netscape browser in 1995. I don't see how that could have gone another way in time to avoid MS doing the same. The idea of a general Web scripting language was to make a relief valve where developers ran up against the limits of existing markup and less expressive languages the browser processed. Then standards bodies were supposed to study the top JS libs and absorb their Turing-incomplete bits into new HTML and CSS. This happened eventually, but not for so long that we had to invent XUL at Mozilla, Adobe did Flex, etc.

paulryanrogers 6y ago

Is JS really the fundamental, responsible part in all that business? Would it have been so much worse with a full page refresh per click?

cccc4alll 6y ago
What would handle the click on the client browser? How would you handle all the user events in the client browser? clicks, mouse overs, selections, etc. The Javascript platform is used to capture user behavior in the most efficient manner. This is the fundamental basis for all the online business processes and resulting business value.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Before JS browsers handled clicks without any 3rd party code. They were much more predictable and easier to reason about as a user. Those clicks usually translated to HTTP calls. What is so fundamental about business processes that they can't do an extra page render and HTTP call? (I imagine there may be some, I just can't see how they are so fundamental and on the order of billions.)
  - BrendanEich 6y ago
    Hotmail, Oddpost, Gmail, Gmaps, YouTube comments, etc etc.
    - paulryanrogers 6y ago
      Funny enough I hear Gmail's plain HTML version is preferable for some here on HN. Regardless I don't see how JS is fundamental to any of those services, not even Maps. Instead I suspect HTML would have become more feature rich sooner than HTML5. I also don't believe JS itself contributes significantly to the trillions of dollars involved in online business.
      - BrendanEich 6y ago
        Why introduce counterfactuals? Flash existed, it had a full JS-variant language. It was taking over restaurant and other sites due to the IE monopoly stagnating HTML/CSS/JS. We don't need to appeal to an imaginary Turing-incomplete no-JS world to argue that JS didn't contribute enough. Flash was clearly the answer! Right?
        paulryanrogers 6y ago
        Turing incompetentes can be a feature IMO. Anyway, my point is that none of the interactivity as delivered by JS / ActiveX / Flash are themselves reason for all the money in online business. Before graphical browsers there were probably billions in transactions happening on computer networks. And likely would have grown to similar highs without the ability to run untrusted, 3rd party code on demand.
        BrendanEich 6y ago
        Go prove it. Meanwhile, back in reality, Flash was taking over and it did have better JS-variant, better graphics, etc. before we in the HTML5 WHATWG group got browsers upgraded. No-JS happy talk about better Turing-incomplete HTML is idle talk. Go on if you must, but I'll stop here. "I do not entertain hypotheticals. The world as it is is vexing enough." - Col. Stonehill, "True Grit"
        BrendanEich 6y ago
        Second reply, sorry — I meant to agree that Turing incomplete languages for things like bounded runtime / all-paths constant time algs are an underutilized toolset. They're coming back on Blockchain, also for browser compositor-thread scripting. But the pressure on the Web to be interactive enough vs. fat or old clients, never mind plugins, pushed not only JS but Java into the Netscape browser in 1995. I don't see how that could have gone another way in time to avoid MS doing the same. The idea of a general Web scripting language was to make a relief valve where developers ran up against the limits of existing markup and less expressive languages the browser processed. Then standards bodies were supposed to study the top JS libs and absorb their Turing-incomplete bits into new HTML and CSS. This happened eventually, but not for so long that we had to invent XUL at Mozilla, Adobe did Flex, etc.