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> I’m looking at different java to js compilers (teavm, j2cl) because I don’t want to write a frontend apps business logic part in js/ts I've seen people do th

by cxr 4y ago

> I’m looking at different java to js compilers (teavm, j2cl) because I don’t want to write a frontend apps business logic part in js/ts I've seen people do this (rewrite a Java app in JS) and then go completely off the rails, instead of, you know, writing it just like they would have (read: already did the first time) in Java. Bonus points when it's followed by the conclusion that JS sucks. It hints towards irrationality on their part. It's as if the structure and order imposed by Java is the _only_ thing keeping them on the straight and narrow, because they themselves can't be trusted to act responsibly and simply follow the same principles on their own when no one is around forcing them to.

kaba0 4y ago
Languages do have their respective idiomatic structure, you write JS differently than Java, and personal preferences may alter one’s decision. But the reason I plan on going down this road is that I don’t want to program the complex business logic twice, it is quite important that both backend and frontend reliably calculate the same results. It is much easier to handle it through a compiler that will uphold Java’s semantics, than trying to write the same thing in JS - where you might easily do float arithmetic when you didn’t intend.
- cxr 4y ago
  > Languages do have their respective idiomatic structure, you write JS differently than Java I object to this specifically as it relates to JS because the sort of code that mainstream "JS" programmers write nowadays ends up being passed off as idiomatic even though it really shouldn't. If you look at well-written JS in very large JS codebases with high standards (like Firefox, at least as it was circa ten years ago, or Apple's Web Inspector[1]), then you realize idiomatic JS looks a lot more like Java, C#, and Objective-C than what you find getting pushed to GitHub today—and (very soon after) discarded, since the half-life of an NPM-powered codebase is something like 2–3 years. The problem is that the style of development associated with the NodeJS+NPM crowd has cannibalized the JS ecosystem, so almost anyone gazing in on the situation today is going to have a _very_ skewed view of what "idiomatic" means. The perverse thing is that you will encounter more of an impedance mismatch with JS-the-language if you actually try to follow the crowd. This is a big driver for toolchain/framework churn—because they're all fighting the language instead of just going with it. 1. https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/WebInspectorUI/search?l=javascript https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/WebInspectorUI/se...

by cxr 4y ago

kaba0 4y ago

Languages do have their respective idiomatic structure, you write JS differently than Java, and personal preferences may alter one’s decision. But the reason I plan on going down this road is that I don’t want to program the complex business logic twice, it is quite important that both backend and frontend reliably calculate the same results. It is much easier to handle it through a compiler that will uphold Java’s semantics, than trying to write the same thing in JS - where you might easily do float arithmetic when you didn’t intend.

cxr 4y ago
> Languages do have their respective idiomatic structure, you write JS differently than Java I object to this specifically as it relates to JS because the sort of code that mainstream "JS" programmers write nowadays ends up being passed off as idiomatic even though it really shouldn't. If you look at well-written JS in very large JS codebases with high standards (like Firefox, at least as it was circa ten years ago, or Apple's Web Inspector[1]), then you realize idiomatic JS looks a lot more like Java, C#, and Objective-C than what you find getting pushed to GitHub today—and (very soon after) discarded, since the half-life of an NPM-powered codebase is something like 2–3 years. The problem is that the style of development associated with the NodeJS+NPM crowd has cannibalized the JS ecosystem, so almost anyone gazing in on the situation today is going to have a _very_ skewed view of what "idiomatic" means. The perverse thing is that you will encounter more of an impedance mismatch with JS-the-language if you actually try to follow the crowd. This is a big driver for toolchain/framework churn—because they're all fighting the language instead of just going with it. 1. https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/WebInspectorUI/search?l=javascript https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/WebInspectorUI/se...