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Why did that quote cause this reaction from you ? Also, that reaction is so widespread at this point, it's become boring to hear it. It's a lot more interesti
by rrishi 4y ago
Why did that quote cause this reaction from you ?
Also, that reaction is so widespread at this point, it's become boring to hear it.
It's a lot more interesting figuring out how the JS ecosystem has been resilient and has not gone down the drain (unlike a lot more "critically" acclaimed languages like Lisp)
- anonymoushn 4y agoMight it have something to do with being forced to use it?
- rrishi 4y agoUsing JS is not enforced on anyone. Several (successful) websites are powered by alternatives to JS. Infact, HN itself does not use JS. You could argue there is a lot more economic incentive to use JS to to the sheer number of jobs, but no one is being forced.
- peoplefromibiza 4y agowe'll never know what could have happened to JavaScript if browsers supported more than a language (Lisp, for example, Brendan Eich plan was to write Scheme for the browser but then Java came out, Netscape had a deal with Sun already and so JavaScript was born) When things were not settled like they are today, Microsoft IE supported multiple languages and many people were using VBscript because it made more sense than JavaScript at the time. Also, many new languages that transpile to JavaScript exist, because, well, for many people JS simply sucks. I hear TypeScript is pretty big in that space. Who knows if JS will survive WASM that promise to free programmers from having to use a single language to write web apps.
- rrishi 4y agoIt will definitely be interesting to see how WASM changes the landscape. But if I were to bet my money, I'd say JS will survive well even in that age. The huge huge ecosystem and with TS being pretty conducive for large teams to use is just a pretty large momentum on JS's side.