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Touché. I will admit I am resistant to learning JS. Part of this is that it seems like no one actually "likes" to program in it, they just have to because it is

Touché. I will admit I am resistant to learning JS. Part of this is that it seems like no one actually "likes" to program in it, they just have to because it is so ubiquitous. But I guess that just goes back to the Bjarne Stroustrup quote: "There are two kinds of programming languages: The ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses."

ronyeh 6y ago
I love it, but I use Typescript, which has a few niceties (e.g., stronger typing) beyond modern JS.
arcturus17 6y ago
> Part of this is that it seems like no one actually "likes" to program in it JavaScript consistently ranks as one of the most loved languages in Stack Overflow surveys... I find plenty of counter-examples of this point on HN too - engineers who have worked across many different stacks and rank JS/TS as one of the best dev experiences they've had (there is one such comment in this comment tree) Anecdotally, I feel as if pre-ES6 a lot of the complaints you read online were from users of the language. Nowadays, it's as if most of the complaints are from people who don't use it. I think there is something to be said about refusing to learn anything but JS, as knowing different languages can be a boon for an engineer, but I believe it's an excellent tool to have in one's belt nowadays.
richeyryan 6y ago
I like to program in JS. I've written non trivial amounts of code in Java, PHP, Clojure and OCaml. I've written approaching trivial amounts of code in Go and Rust. JS has warts, undoubtedly so. But I try to approach it like I would Clojure and it makes the experience much better for me. I think JS has the bones of a Lisp if you're willing to look for them. Sure it doesn't have macros or decent conditional expressions or immutability but using something like Ramda gets you some of the way there. And there are proposals for pattern matching and immutable data structures though they are fairly far off. I think JS is at its worst when people try to code it as poor version of Java or C#. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Typescript for this reason. Some aspects of its type system are great like being able to make a union out of anything, I wish OCaml had that. But I think denying Javascript's inherent dynamic nature is a mistake. Overall I've learned to ignore its worst parts and just focus on what made it good from the start, being a weird cousin of Scheme that runs in the browser.
cdash 6y ago
For me, Typescript changed everything. I don't enjoy programming in plain old JS but I love Typescript.

ronyeh 6y ago

I love it, but I use Typescript, which has a few niceties (e.g., stronger typing) beyond modern JS.

arcturus17 6y ago

> Part of this is that it seems like no one actually "likes" to program in it JavaScript consistently ranks as one of the most loved languages in Stack Overflow surveys... I find plenty of counter-examples of this point on HN too - engineers who have worked across many different stacks and rank JS/TS as one of the best dev experiences they've had (there is one such comment in this comment tree) Anecdotally, I feel as if pre-ES6 a lot of the complaints you read online were from users of the language. Nowadays, it's as if most of the complaints are from people who don't use it. I think there is something to be said about refusing to learn anything but JS, as knowing different languages can be a boon for an engineer, but I believe it's an excellent tool to have in one's belt nowadays.

richeyryan 6y ago

I like to program in JS. I've written non trivial amounts of code in Java, PHP, Clojure and OCaml. I've written approaching trivial amounts of code in Go and Rust. JS has warts, undoubtedly so. But I try to approach it like I would Clojure and it makes the experience much better for me. I think JS has the bones of a Lisp if you're willing to look for them. Sure it doesn't have macros or decent conditional expressions or immutability but using something like Ramda gets you some of the way there. And there are proposals for pattern matching and immutable data structures though they are fairly far off. I think JS is at its worst when people try to code it as poor version of Java or C#. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Typescript for this reason. Some aspects of its type system are great like being able to make a union out of anything, I wish OCaml had that. But I think denying Javascript's inherent dynamic nature is a mistake. Overall I've learned to ignore its worst parts and just focus on what made it good from the start, being a weird cousin of Scheme that runs in the browser.

cdash 6y ago

For me, Typescript changed everything. I don't enjoy programming in plain old JS but I love Typescript.