3 ms·

Such ignorance. Willful? You seem new around here, and you are not using your real name. If only we were on Google+ :-/. The long stagnation from ES3 (1999) to

Such ignorance. Willful? You seem new around here, and you are not using your real name. If only we were on Google+ :-/. The long stagnation from ES3 (1999) to ES5 (2009) had everything to do with Microsoft abusing its browser-tying OS monopoly to stagnate the web by disbanding the IE team after IE6. This was prosecuted in U.S. v. Microsoft. How old are you, to never learn or else to forget this? When I brought Mozilla back to Ecma in 2004 as we were launching Firefox 1.0, the JS standards group within TC39 was fooling around with E4X. Only one MSFT and one ex-BEA (ex-MSFT before that by way of Crossgain) guy were doing the spec work, and IE was not ever going to implement E4X. We had to restart browser competition to get the various parties (Apple and Opera too) back in the room and working productively on the core language. Now, we have ES5 done and ES6 under way. ES5 had new semantics, ES6 has more along with syntax, chiefly the module system (a second class system to facilitate prefetching, along with a loader API for when you need to be dynamic). This is all documented on http://wiki.ecmascript.org/ http://wiki.ecmascript.org/. So your trollish commentary notwithstanding, ES5 is done and shipping in the latest browsers (finally complete in IE10 previews), and ES6 is being drafted and pieces are being prototyped in SpiderMonkey and V8. I'm the last person to defend Java, but the JVM deserves a word here: it has finally evolved a bit, and it is fairly thriving on the server side with Scala, Clojure, and other languages. Java's stagnation was due to Sun's miscalculations and mismanagement over the years.

cromwellian 15y ago
You accuse me of trollish behavior, yet resort to personal slights, asking how old I am? Irony. Did I ever question your age or intent? I am fully aware of Microsoft's behavior, but that still doesn't address the fundamental issue that language evolution within spec committees is painfully slow and the competing interests waterdown proposals. It happened to C++ and to Java too. It happens in our government as well, we often don't get what's best or right, only what you've got the votes for. The issue is whether or not any large changes can be pushed through in a timely manner, if the need arises. I've seen, over several threads, you seem to simultaneously stress the idea that Javascript performance is good enough (vs native), a Dart VM performing better than JS is a problem, and that whatever performance problems there are, they'll be resolved by better JS VMs. Not only are those hard to reconcile, but it requires a great leap of faith to believe that they will, because we've heard it all before. We've heard the same arguments about Smalltalk performance, about Self performance, and of course, the JVM, that the performance differentials will be tackled. As for the language ecosystem on the server, yes, it's wonderful, but happened in spite of the JVM, not because of any evolution in it. The fact remains, Java changes were often evaluated towards remaining binary compatible with existing bytecode (e.g. erasure vs reification) and that caused the vote down of language proposals. (the same problem did not occur in C#/CLR) My question is, when can I write a mobile web app using Javascript, that performs as delightful, in startup time, in runtime performance, in lack of janky-ness, for a mobile device, that doesn't burn battery or memory? Are you promising that evolved JS is going to fix this issue?
- BrendanEich 15y ago
  Am I promising you a pony? No, but then you are not a three-year old. I am simply working every day to advance the open web, including JS, including on mobile devices. What are you doing, besides asserting falsehoods about the JS standard and its leading implementations?
- cromwellian 15y ago
  This is what this conversation is starting to sound like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOrI6uqS-vk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOrI6uqS-vk
- BrendanEich 15y ago
  We agree on Java the language being mismanaged. Especially in comparison to C# (see a recent InfoQ interview with Neil Gafter). But the JVM is in better shape. I despair of your reading comprehension, though, when it comes to what I have written about the leaked memo's Dash strategy. I never wrote that JS can be as fast at Dart-to-JS code as a native Dart VM could be. Not ever -- quite the reverse. Now if we on TC39 had the benefit of Google's Dart expert input any time in the last year, we could have possibly worked harder on guards (optional type annotations), branding (aka trademarking, nominal types for use with guards), bignums, classes, or other proposals that have suffered in comparison to those that clearly made it into ES6. FYI, these were all strawman-status on http://wiki.ecmascript.org http://wiki.ecmascript.org over the last year or so. Some Googlers on TC39 did work on a few of these, in most cases too late for our agreed-upon ES6 proposal cut-off date. We did hear a dire warning from one Google rep in May 2010 that if two of these proposals were not promoted to Harmony status, JS "would be replaced!" So your complaints about the ECMA standard not progressing fast enough come with ill grace from a google employee. Google has a lot of power and it has not discharged it responsibly, in my view. ES6 would be a better Dart-to-JS target language, including draft specs and prototypes in V8, if it had made a concerted effort. Contrast this with Mark Miller (Google) and Tom Van Cutsem working in the open, and very effectively, on ES6 proxies, already prototyped in SpiderMonkey and V8. Or the module system designed by Dave Herman and Sam Tobin-Hochstadt in the open, which you overlooked. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy! In this case, you are not even predicting the future, you're misstating the past.

cromwellian 15y ago

You accuse me of trollish behavior, yet resort to personal slights, asking how old I am? Irony. Did I ever question your age or intent? I am fully aware of Microsoft's behavior, but that still doesn't address the fundamental issue that language evolution within spec committees is painfully slow and the competing interests waterdown proposals. It happened to C++ and to Java too. It happens in our government as well, we often don't get what's best or right, only what you've got the votes for. The issue is whether or not any large changes can be pushed through in a timely manner, if the need arises. I've seen, over several threads, you seem to simultaneously stress the idea that Javascript performance is good enough (vs native), a Dart VM performing better than JS is a problem, and that whatever performance problems there are, they'll be resolved by better JS VMs. Not only are those hard to reconcile, but it requires a great leap of faith to believe that they will, because we've heard it all before. We've heard the same arguments about Smalltalk performance, about Self performance, and of course, the JVM, that the performance differentials will be tackled. As for the language ecosystem on the server, yes, it's wonderful, but happened in spite of the JVM, not because of any evolution in it. The fact remains, Java changes were often evaluated towards remaining binary compatible with existing bytecode (e.g. erasure vs reification) and that caused the vote down of language proposals. (the same problem did not occur in C#/CLR) My question is, when can I write a mobile web app using Javascript, that performs as delightful, in startup time, in runtime performance, in lack of janky-ness, for a mobile device, that doesn't burn battery or memory? Are you promising that evolved JS is going to fix this issue?

BrendanEich 15y ago
Am I promising you a pony? No, but then you are not a three-year old. I am simply working every day to advance the open web, including JS, including on mobile devices. What are you doing, besides asserting falsehoods about the JS standard and its leading implementations?
cromwellian 15y ago
This is what this conversation is starting to sound like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOrI6uqS-vk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOrI6uqS-vk
BrendanEich 15y ago
We agree on Java the language being mismanaged. Especially in comparison to C# (see a recent InfoQ interview with Neil Gafter). But the JVM is in better shape. I despair of your reading comprehension, though, when it comes to what I have written about the leaked memo's Dash strategy. I never wrote that JS can be as fast at Dart-to-JS code as a native Dart VM could be. Not ever -- quite the reverse. Now if we on TC39 had the benefit of Google's Dart expert input any time in the last year, we could have possibly worked harder on guards (optional type annotations), branding (aka trademarking, nominal types for use with guards), bignums, classes, or other proposals that have suffered in comparison to those that clearly made it into ES6. FYI, these were all strawman-status on http://wiki.ecmascript.org http://wiki.ecmascript.org over the last year or so. Some Googlers on TC39 did work on a few of these, in most cases too late for our agreed-upon ES6 proposal cut-off date. We did hear a dire warning from one Google rep in May 2010 that if two of these proposals were not promoted to Harmony status, JS "would be replaced!" So your complaints about the ECMA standard not progressing fast enough come with ill grace from a google employee. Google has a lot of power and it has not discharged it responsibly, in my view. ES6 would be a better Dart-to-JS target language, including draft specs and prototypes in V8, if it had made a concerted effort. Contrast this with Mark Miller (Google) and Tom Van Cutsem working in the open, and very effectively, on ES6 proxies, already prototyped in SpiderMonkey and V8. Or the module system designed by Dave Herman and Sam Tobin-Hochstadt in the open, which you overlooked. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy! In this case, you are not even predicting the future, you're misstating the past.