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JavaScript is some of the best evidence we have that design consistency is not the dominant factor in determining language popularity. I haven't figured out wh
by shadowgovt 4y ago
JavaScript is some of the best evidence we have that design consistency is not the dominant factor in determining language popularity.
I haven't figured out what is yet. I have a hunch that having a short path to working small and medium complexity projects is a big part of it. But I can't rule out the possibility that the most important thing is just application context... Would anybody still care about JavaScript if the browser hadn't happened?
- Cacti 4y agoWithout the browser, JavaScript wouldn’t even be called JavaScript.
- toyg 4y agoWithout the browser, JS would just not exist. It was invented explicitly to animate html pages in Netscape, in a couple of weeks. Arguably, nobody else would ever need a language with JS's original feature set.
- kragen 4y agoyou are absolutely correct; the most important thing is just application context java was in browsers but couldn't manipulate the dom; same thing with flash vbscript was in browsers but only msie
- kaba0 4y agoAnd that context is largely politics. There is no reason why Java could not have manipulated the DOM.
- kragen 4y agoright, or elisp or tcl or perl or basic or bash technical merit does matter to some extent; forth or assembly would probably not have been adequate, and javascript is far superior to java for this