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We just need all this tooling to go in the browser.. which is where it always belonged. That was the purpose of JS. To "just run" in the browser. It's getting t

We just need all this tooling to go in the browser.. which is where it always belonged. That was the purpose of JS. To "just run" in the browser. It's getting there but very slowly. As for my own rant, simply the fact that Microsoft, of all places are the ones who run TypeScript and now the proposal to add TS to native JS.. is part of the issue. MS has zero imagination. JS needs native typing and it shouldn't be done by MS, and it should be a limited subset of TS with no particular intent to be compatible with MS's TS. Then and only then JS becomes its own thing again.

grandpoobah 4y ago
Who made you the arbiter of how things ought to be?
drawkbox 4y ago
TypeScript and C# are both great languages from Anders Hejlsberg. The Danish know how to design a language, C# developer was Mads Torgersen. Microsoft employs them so they want it used more and people like it. Fun fact: Anders Hejlsberg also designed Turbo Pascal, Delphi which were huge in their day. I agree though, JS needs to just run in the browser. All the tooling is really a leaky abstraction or unnecessary guts that get in the way. Rant: Webpack is an abomination to anything simple and clear, many dev hours are lost on it. I still think if ES4 hadn't been cancelled for ES5 we'd be in a better place. It had amazing typing, event handling and was very clear, essentially looked like TypeScript. Browsers could have easily supported ES3 and ES4, we'd have a more solid browser "just works" setup.
- AltruisticGapHN 4y ago
  Good points. > Webpack is an abomination to anything simple and clear, many dev hours are lost on it. Check out Vite. It's basically Webpack with sensible defaults. Still the same bundling paradigm but it's been so much easier for me to use. Also way way easier to add plugins in Vite.
krapp 4y ago
>That was the purpose of JS. To "just run" in the browser. It's getting there but very slowly. It's not getting there, it was ALREADY THERE. Javascript has always "just run" in the browser. We don't need any of this tooling. Typescript isn't necessary. NPM isn't necessary. None of this is necessary. They're useful, yes, but they shouldn't be mandatory. The simple act of testing some code you found on Github shouldn't require any of it.

grandpoobah 4y ago

Who made you the arbiter of how things ought to be?

drawkbox 4y ago

TypeScript and C# are both great languages from Anders Hejlsberg. The Danish know how to design a language, C# developer was Mads Torgersen. Microsoft employs them so they want it used more and people like it. Fun fact: Anders Hejlsberg also designed Turbo Pascal, Delphi which were huge in their day. I agree though, JS needs to just run in the browser. All the tooling is really a leaky abstraction or unnecessary guts that get in the way. Rant: Webpack is an abomination to anything simple and clear, many dev hours are lost on it. I still think if ES4 hadn't been cancelled for ES5 we'd be in a better place. It had amazing typing, event handling and was very clear, essentially looked like TypeScript. Browsers could have easily supported ES3 and ES4, we'd have a more solid browser "just works" setup.

AltruisticGapHN 4y ago
Good points. > Webpack is an abomination to anything simple and clear, many dev hours are lost on it. Check out Vite. It's basically Webpack with sensible defaults. Still the same bundling paradigm but it's been so much easier for me to use. Also way way easier to add plugins in Vite.

krapp 4y ago

>That was the purpose of JS. To "just run" in the browser. It's getting there but very slowly. It's not getting there, it was ALREADY THERE. Javascript has always "just run" in the browser. We don't need any of this tooling. Typescript isn't necessary. NPM isn't necessary. None of this is necessary. They're useful, yes, but they shouldn't be mandatory. The simple act of testing some code you found on Github shouldn't require any of it.