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> Javascript was a meme language, but it was easy to use and highly accessible. Now its everywhere, in everything, including places it has no business being. J
by throwaway894345 5y ago
> Javascript was a meme language, but it was easy to use and highly accessible. Now its everywhere, in everything, including places it has no business being.
JavaScript is the wrong example. It didn't succeed on merit, but because it was the sole language available for the web platform for the entire history of the web until recently and even now it enjoys significant "unfair" advantages (browsers only expose DOM APIs to JavaScript, the JS standard library is baked into the browser while other languages must ship their own over the network, etc).
- SquareWheel 5y agoWhile never widely adopted, VBScript was able to be ran in script tags in Internet Explorer.
- throwaway894345 5y agoI fully believe that JS is better than VBScript, but it's also possible that many other factors contributed to JS's triumph over VBScript. In whichever case, this is pretty weak evidence for the claim "JS won its popularity relative to other languages by merit" (presumably you weren't intending it to be strong evidence).
- SquareWheel 5y agoI was only commenting on the claim that JavaScript was the "sole language available for the web platform".
- throwaway894345 5y agoFair enough, thanks for clarifying. :)