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I don't know. I'd find it annoying to build a large application in javascript, but I suppose it could be done. There are some attractive alternatives like GAE a

I don't know. I'd find it annoying to build a large application in javascript, but I suppose it could be done. There are some attractive alternatives like GAE and Heroku. That said, cloud services are a hot area, and there are plenty of new tools that Appjet could leverage, like S3 and couchdb.

SwellJoe 18y ago
I'd find it annoying to build a large application in javascript Why? It's a pretty darned powerful language. ExtJS and YUI have shown that it can work for quite large projects in an OO manner, and jQuery has shown that it can be made exceedingly concise and pretty. It's missing a lot of niceties for working with the system, which is a big negative (and one of the same reasons that Lisp, Scheme, and Smalltalk haven't had as big an impact as more recent attempts at dynamic languages like Perl, Python, and Ruby have had), but I assume that as the non-browser implementations become more popular, those problems will be addressed. I think, when all is said and done, if the committees don't manage to kill what's great about JavaScript (by, for example, bolting on more Java-style OO), it could grow to be more popular than all other dynamic languages combined. Not that I'll be switching from Perl to JavaScript for server-side work any time soon, of course.
- stcredzero 18y ago
  I recall an add-on for Scheme where you could call Unix command line utilities and tie them together with pipes, and it all just looked like your run of the mill Scheme code. Also, there was a project to enable writing Unix style command line utilities in Smalltalk. They got the image down to ridiculous small sizes, like 45k! There's nothing about Javascript that would preclude "working with the system." Usually the biggest barrier is the culture of the development community. Really, Smalltalk never completely quit being an OS.
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    Agreed on all counts. Culture definitely plays a big role, perhaps the biggest role.

SwellJoe 18y ago

I'd find it annoying to build a large application in javascript Why? It's a pretty darned powerful language. ExtJS and YUI have shown that it can work for quite large projects in an OO manner, and jQuery has shown that it can be made exceedingly concise and pretty. It's missing a lot of niceties for working with the system, which is a big negative (and one of the same reasons that Lisp, Scheme, and Smalltalk haven't had as big an impact as more recent attempts at dynamic languages like Perl, Python, and Ruby have had), but I assume that as the non-browser implementations become more popular, those problems will be addressed. I think, when all is said and done, if the committees don't manage to kill what's great about JavaScript (by, for example, bolting on more Java-style OO), it could grow to be more popular than all other dynamic languages combined. Not that I'll be switching from Perl to JavaScript for server-side work any time soon, of course.

stcredzero 18y ago
I recall an add-on for Scheme where you could call Unix command line utilities and tie them together with pipes, and it all just looked like your run of the mill Scheme code. Also, there was a project to enable writing Unix style command line utilities in Smalltalk. They got the image down to ridiculous small sizes, like 45k! There's nothing about Javascript that would preclude "working with the system." Usually the biggest barrier is the culture of the development community. Really, Smalltalk never completely quit being an OS.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  Agreed on all counts. Culture definitely plays a big role, perhaps the biggest role.