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> The webdev ecosystem is so broken Allow me to correct this statement: The Javascript ecosystem is so broken. Working with Clojurescript and Elm is an experi

> The webdev ecosystem is so broken Allow me to correct this statement: The Javascript ecosystem is so broken. Working with Clojurescript and Elm is an experience that will make most developers fall in love with web development again.

krapp 5y ago
Hate to break it to you but Clojurescript, Elm and the whole paradigm of "compile to JS" languages are part of what is broken about the javascript ecosystem. So much unnecessary complexity and energy wasted making javascript pretend to be something it isn't and to make it do things it was never meant to do, pressing a small, simple and powerful scripting language into the service of the profane eldritch abomination that is Enterprise Development.
- deergomoo 5y ago
  I dunno, I feel that’s like saying that Lisp and Haskell are part of what’s broken about the machine code ecosystem. ClojureScript and Elm aren’t compile-to-JS languages for the sake of doing something weird, there’s just literally nothing else that will run in a browser (except wasm but probably best not to get into that). Different programming languages exist for a multitude of valid reasons, the compiled output isn’t particularly important as long as it can express everything you need it to.
  - krapp 5y ago
    > I dunno, I feel that’s like saying that Lisp and Haskell are part of what’s broken about the machine code ecosystem. It would be if machine code were another high-level text-based language completely unrelated to either Lisp or Haskell with its own semantics, execution model and type system rather than a more directly machine-readable format of those languages themselves. Javascript is fundamentally different enough from a bytecode for any arbitrary language that, at least to me the distinction matters. I can accept that it works well enough that most people don't care, even though I suspect most of the use cases for doing so (error checking, type checking) could be better served with linters or editor tools for JS itself. But the decision to avoid actually writing javascript at all costs has contributed a great deal of complexity in the JS ecosystem, which translates into the bloat in the web that everyone complains about, because all of that javascript is wasting time and cycles simulating other languages.
    - zachrose 5y ago
      > But the decision to avoid actually writing javascript at all costs Who's JavaScript is it anyway? ES7? ES6? Internet Explorer 11's? How do you isolate things for the sake of unit tests and then bring them together into a performant build?
      - krapp 5y ago
        >Who's JavaScript is it anyway? ES7? ES6? Internet Explorer 11's? Cross-browser compatible Javascript was a solved problem when JQuery and shimming came along. >How do you isolate things for the sake of unit tests and then bring them together into a performant build? Use one of the many unit testing libraries and frameworks that already exist for Javascript.
- jupp0r 5y ago
  Hate to break it to you, but what you call "Enterprise Development" is really just "large software projects", for which many find the "simple and powerful scripting language" inadequate.
  - krapp 5y ago
    But those projects use that "simple and powerful scripting language" anyway, so clearly it is adequate.
    - jupp0r 5y ago
      Are you using JavaScript when you are using TypeScript? I guess so, to some degree. The additional tooling complexity is just not that significant compared to the gains of a language that compiles to JavaScript vs using vanilla JavaScript.
curun1r 5y ago
Also Trunk [0] for Rust-wasm web dev. It’s made me not hate doing the front end for my projects. I look forward to the Rust web ecosystem evolving to the point where I can recommend it in a work context. [0] https://trunkrs.dev/ https://trunkrs.dev/

krapp 5y ago

Hate to break it to you but Clojurescript, Elm and the whole paradigm of "compile to JS" languages are part of what is broken about the javascript ecosystem. So much unnecessary complexity and energy wasted making javascript pretend to be something it isn't and to make it do things it was never meant to do, pressing a small, simple and powerful scripting language into the service of the profane eldritch abomination that is Enterprise Development.

deergomoo 5y ago
I dunno, I feel that’s like saying that Lisp and Haskell are part of what’s broken about the machine code ecosystem. ClojureScript and Elm aren’t compile-to-JS languages for the sake of doing something weird, there’s just literally nothing else that will run in a browser (except wasm but probably best not to get into that). Different programming languages exist for a multitude of valid reasons, the compiled output isn’t particularly important as long as it can express everything you need it to.
- krapp 5y ago
  > I dunno, I feel that’s like saying that Lisp and Haskell are part of what’s broken about the machine code ecosystem. It would be if machine code were another high-level text-based language completely unrelated to either Lisp or Haskell with its own semantics, execution model and type system rather than a more directly machine-readable format of those languages themselves. Javascript is fundamentally different enough from a bytecode for any arbitrary language that, at least to me the distinction matters. I can accept that it works well enough that most people don't care, even though I suspect most of the use cases for doing so (error checking, type checking) could be better served with linters or editor tools for JS itself. But the decision to avoid actually writing javascript at all costs has contributed a great deal of complexity in the JS ecosystem, which translates into the bloat in the web that everyone complains about, because all of that javascript is wasting time and cycles simulating other languages.
  - zachrose 5y ago
    > But the decision to avoid actually writing javascript at all costs Who's JavaScript is it anyway? ES7? ES6? Internet Explorer 11's? How do you isolate things for the sake of unit tests and then bring them together into a performant build?
    - krapp 5y ago
      >Who's JavaScript is it anyway? ES7? ES6? Internet Explorer 11's? Cross-browser compatible Javascript was a solved problem when JQuery and shimming came along. >How do you isolate things for the sake of unit tests and then bring them together into a performant build? Use one of the many unit testing libraries and frameworks that already exist for Javascript.
jupp0r 5y ago
Hate to break it to you, but what you call "Enterprise Development" is really just "large software projects", for which many find the "simple and powerful scripting language" inadequate.
- krapp 5y ago
  But those projects use that "simple and powerful scripting language" anyway, so clearly it is adequate.
  - jupp0r 5y ago
    Are you using JavaScript when you are using TypeScript? I guess so, to some degree. The additional tooling complexity is just not that significant compared to the gains of a language that compiles to JavaScript vs using vanilla JavaScript.

curun1r 5y ago

Also Trunk [0] for Rust-wasm web dev. It’s made me not hate doing the front end for my projects. I look forward to the Rust web ecosystem evolving to the point where I can recommend it in a work context. [0] https://trunkrs.dev/ https://trunkrs.dev/