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> why Javascript for the backend?...[I'd] probably head over to e.g. Python once databases et al start getting involved I could ask the same thing: why Python

• jrm4 5y ago
  Fair -- but let me be more precise then. I do like the idea of "use what you learned and are most comfortable in." That being said, I think what I mean by "e.g. Python" is specifically - "older slash more text oriented slash proven" If you like Javascript, fine. But I think there's a case to be made that there is a completely unnecessary "bloat" to Javascript -- especially even as the author himself has suggested that at the end of the day it's all string concatenation. If that's the case, (as it frequently is) it ends up boiling down to "what handles text well and in an established and smooth way," and Javascript does not score high there, I'd suggest.
  • brundolf 5y ago
    It doesn't sound like you write much JavaScript :) > I think there's a case to be made that there is a completely unnecessary "bloat" to Javascript "Bloat in JS" is something of a trope, and I'm not really even sure what you mean by it here. Typically people mean "too many JS dependencies are often drawn in for web pages", but that's not really relevant. Maybe you mean syntax bloat (method calls instead of list comprehensions)? If so, you're not totally wrong, but it's also not really a big deal in my experience. If you're talking about runtime/performance, well... V8 tends to be faster than CPython in raw compute (excluding native modules) because Google has put so much work into optimizing it (not that that matters much for a SSG either) > it ends up boiling down to "what handles text well and in an established and smooth way," and Javascript does not score high there Whenever I need to process some nontrivial text, the first thing I do is open up a Chrome tab for the JS repl. I think the following it pretty smooth: const csv = ` Name,Email,Phone Number,Address Bob Smith,bob@example.com,123-456-7890,123 Fake Street Mike Jones,mike@example.com,098-765-4321,321 Fake Avenue` const lines = csv.trim().split('\n').map(line => line.split(',')) const [headings, ...data] = lines const objs = data.map(datum => Object.fromEntries( headings.map((heading, index) => [heading, datum[index]]))) console.log(objs) // output: [ { "Name": "Bob Smith", "Email": "bob@example.com", "Phone Number": "123-456-7890", "Address": "123 Fake Street" }, { "Name": "Mike Jones", "Email": "mike@example.com", "Phone Number": "098-765-4321", "Address": "321 Fake Avenue" } ] Not to mention template-strings, which I use extensively in my own website: const header = ` <h1>Welcome to ${pageTitle}</h1> ` Of course it's all subjective and Python does have format strings and some slick dedicated syntaxes. But I don't think it's fair to say "JavaScript does not score high" when it comes to text-shuffling.
    • jrm4 5y ago
      When I say bloat, I do mostly mean "human-side," not "computer-side" of things. Again, if it works for you it works, but from my POV the idea of opening up a massive application, a web browser, that's mostly unrelated to the task at hand -- when leaner, older, well-proven approaches exist is super-odd to me. I have actually seen this before, and here's the observation: Consider someone who starts off text-mangling in Javascript, and then later has a go at a more "classic" approach, e.g. command-line with Bash or Python or even Perl. Then consider the reverse; someone who starts off classic and learns/tries this Javascript approach. I'd be willing to bet huge sums of money that a decent number of the Javascript people will end up adopting the classic approach, and that very few, possibly zero, of the classic people will adopt the Javascript approach.
  • z3t4 5y ago
    I remember when string concatenations where slow in JavaScript and you used array join. But string concatenation is very optimized now in all major JS engines.