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Who remembers when it was called LiveScript? Then they got excited about Java and renamed it which confused generations of programmers. No one understood the

by ars 3y ago

Who remembers when it was called LiveScript? Then they got excited about Java and renamed it which confused generations of programmers. No one understood the power of JavaScript when it first came out. For example at first hardly anyone understood Closures, and the full power of JavaScript being a functional language. And when Google made Google Maps which was dynamic unlike MapQuest it was a revelation and influenced so many people in what JavaScript (and the web) could do.

gleenn 3y ago
Maps was amazing but I remember being blown away by xmlHttpRequest and the dynamic search that autocompleted. It had hilariously little to do with XML.
- toyg 3y ago
  > It had hilariously little to do with XML Er, it had everything to do with XML. It was introduced to give pages the possibility to fetch XML (typically feeds) and render their content dynamically; which is basically what it ended up being used for, except XML feeds were then replaced by simpler files.
  - cabalamat 3y ago
    > except XML feeds were then replaced by simpler files Yes. XML was basically superceded by JSON, which was far less verbose and clunky.
    - oaiey 3y ago
      XML in XMLHttpRequest was first superseded by HTML and then by JSON. And JSON only because the JavaScript API for XML (aka. the DOM API) is the worst thing imaginable compared to the simplicity offered by JSON.parse and then the JS native representation of it as objects. The same ugly DOM API let to the advent and rule of jQuery. The success of JSON has less to do with verbose/clunkiness but a lot with the available APIs in the JavaScript frontend.
      - johannes1234321 3y ago
        > compared to the simplicity offered by JSON.parse JSON.parse() came a lot later. People started with eval(), which lead to quite some problems (executing code returned from some third party service, what could go wrong ....) and then various other attempts at parsing.
        kentbrew 3y ago
        I was curious about this so I looked it up. We didn't have JSON.parse and JSON.stringify in place worldwide until fourteen years later. Horrible times. https://caniuse.com/?search=JSON https://caniuse.com/?search=JSON
- tannhaeuser 3y ago
  XML is to XmlHttpRequest like Java is to JavaScript?
smcl 3y ago
I always thought the name was just a little wink and a nod towards Java and nothing more. So I was surprised to see this in the press release: > complementary to and integrated with Java Was this ever true around the time, and if so was it ever really used? I know that now we have a couple of JS implementations on the JVM, like Nashorn, that would represent some level of integration (you could call JVM methods from JS) but the idea that Javascript was "integrated with" Java back in 1995 sounds a little far-fetched.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  The whole point was to let websites interact with java applets on the site. If that’s not integration then what is? Either you’re splitting hairs or you’re forgetting that applets were touted as Java’s killer application at the time.
  - smcl 3y ago
    Well I was 9 years old in 1995, didn't get the internet until 1999, and only started programming in 2001 (and even then it was Perl + C) so that was an honest question from someone who didn't experience any of this first-hand. If one of its original use-cases was to facilitate some kind of browser/applet integration then fair enough. But in the linked article there are only vague references to this that sound a bit weird or confused, like "the scripts would glue together an assortment of Java applets" or like "JavaScript will allow us to easily create personalized applets for the Excite service". I found some docs @ Oracle from ~2013 that demonstrate calling some applet methods, but I can't tell if that is a later addition or was present from the start: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/applet/invokingAppletMethodsFromJavaScript.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/applet/in... edit: looks like Bill Joy himself said "JavaScript will be the most effective method to connect HTML-based content to Java applets" in the article, but I'm still curious how deep this connection is, or if it's just hand-wavy "our new tech is great and I have to tie it to another currently-popular tech somehow"
    - skrebbel 3y ago
      Fwiw if you really are asking an honest question, consider not calling things a little far-fetched, esp if said things were true. Anyway, I’m your age so I’m not 100% sure either but my understanding is that applets, for quite a while, were considered the software delivery platform of the future. Just open a webpage and get an entire end-user program running right there, no downloading or installing, nothing. It turned Netscape into something of a universal app store and people were very excited. JavaScript very much was intended to let the rest of the web page interface with the software program (the applet) running on it. Your excite quote shows a key use case: ship a generic compile applet in a site which contains user-specific data, write a little JavaScript to send the data to the applet and poof, it’s personalized! Magic. That success never happened though (and I’m not sure why), and most uses of applets I saw were of slow, ugly navigation menus with hover effects and stuff like that.
toyg 3y ago
Arguably the real game-changer was GMail, which pre-dates GMaps. It introduced a lot of people to XHR, which was previously used only by people keen on XML/XSL.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  The innovation of Gmail was “so much storage you never have to delete emails again”. The UI wasn’t too different from contemporary incumbents such as Hotmail.
  - toyg 3y ago
    It had that as well, and undoubtedly it was the main attraction, but iirc it was already not refreshing the whole page when clicking on the email index to read a single email - if not at launch, very shortly after. They later added "html mode" for compatibility with older browsers.
  - zztop44 3y ago
    Storage was definitely the killer feature, but I remember thread view, good search and AJAX navigation to be significant improvements over eg hotmail at the time
- blowski 3y ago
  It was the Web 2.0 era. Delicious, Flickr, Digg, Netvibes, YouOS - they all had AJAX interfaces that used innovative techniques in JavaScript.
- unscaled 3y ago
  It wasn't Gmail that started XHR though. Gmail wasn't even first online email service to use XHR. The first app to use XHR, which is also the first email service to use XHR was Outlook Web Access. It's funny that Microsoft were the who were innovating with better features and a more coherent vision during the late browser wars, but they failed to capitalize on this innovation once they won the war and they could now just release IE6 with a shiny Media Bar and then fail to update it for 5 years. Nothing would ever go wrong, and no competitor could threat Microsoft, since all these toolbars everybody seem to adore are only compatible with Internet Explorer anyway. Yeah...
bazoom42 3y ago
JavaScript was not very powerful when it came out though. It couldn’t modify the DOM (except input controls) and it couldnt perform background requests.
pwdisswordfishc 3y ago
> at first hardly anyone understood Closures, and the full power of JavaScript being a functional language Especially that it wasn’t. JavaScript in Netscape 2 didn’t even have function expressions.
genezeta 3y ago
> For example at first hardly anyone understood Closures At first, closures weren't even available. I mean, in 1.0 and 1.1 you could only declare global functions. 1.2 introduced function expressions and closures. That was June 1997; the language was still changing quite a bit and it wouldn't be until ECMA standardization that things would become stable and clear enough for people to use. (Even though there would still be huge differences across browsers for years)

by ars 3y ago

gleenn 3y ago

Maps was amazing but I remember being blown away by xmlHttpRequest and the dynamic search that autocompleted. It had hilariously little to do with XML.

toyg 3y ago
> It had hilariously little to do with XML Er, it had everything to do with XML. It was introduced to give pages the possibility to fetch XML (typically feeds) and render their content dynamically; which is basically what it ended up being used for, except XML feeds were then replaced by simpler files.
- cabalamat 3y ago
  > except XML feeds were then replaced by simpler files Yes. XML was basically superceded by JSON, which was far less verbose and clunky.
  - oaiey 3y ago
    XML in XMLHttpRequest was first superseded by HTML and then by JSON. And JSON only because the JavaScript API for XML (aka. the DOM API) is the worst thing imaginable compared to the simplicity offered by JSON.parse and then the JS native representation of it as objects. The same ugly DOM API let to the advent and rule of jQuery. The success of JSON has less to do with verbose/clunkiness but a lot with the available APIs in the JavaScript frontend.
    - johannes1234321 3y ago
      > compared to the simplicity offered by JSON.parse JSON.parse() came a lot later. People started with eval(), which lead to quite some problems (executing code returned from some third party service, what could go wrong ....) and then various other attempts at parsing.
      - kentbrew 3y ago
        I was curious about this so I looked it up. We didn't have JSON.parse and JSON.stringify in place worldwide until fourteen years later. Horrible times. https://caniuse.com/?search=JSON https://caniuse.com/?search=JSON
tannhaeuser 3y ago
XML is to XmlHttpRequest like Java is to JavaScript?

smcl 3y ago

I always thought the name was just a little wink and a nod towards Java and nothing more. So I was surprised to see this in the press release: > complementary to and integrated with Java Was this ever true around the time, and if so was it ever really used? I know that now we have a couple of JS implementations on the JVM, like Nashorn, that would represent some level of integration (you could call JVM methods from JS) but the idea that Javascript was "integrated with" Java back in 1995 sounds a little far-fetched.

skrebbel 3y ago
The whole point was to let websites interact with java applets on the site. If that’s not integration then what is? Either you’re splitting hairs or you’re forgetting that applets were touted as Java’s killer application at the time.
- smcl 3y ago
  Well I was 9 years old in 1995, didn't get the internet until 1999, and only started programming in 2001 (and even then it was Perl + C) so that was an honest question from someone who didn't experience any of this first-hand. If one of its original use-cases was to facilitate some kind of browser/applet integration then fair enough. But in the linked article there are only vague references to this that sound a bit weird or confused, like "the scripts would glue together an assortment of Java applets" or like "JavaScript will allow us to easily create personalized applets for the Excite service". I found some docs @ Oracle from ~2013 that demonstrate calling some applet methods, but I can't tell if that is a later addition or was present from the start: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/applet/invokingAppletMethodsFromJavaScript.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/applet/in... edit: looks like Bill Joy himself said "JavaScript will be the most effective method to connect HTML-based content to Java applets" in the article, but I'm still curious how deep this connection is, or if it's just hand-wavy "our new tech is great and I have to tie it to another currently-popular tech somehow"
  - skrebbel 3y ago
    Fwiw if you really are asking an honest question, consider not calling things a little far-fetched, esp if said things were true. Anyway, I’m your age so I’m not 100% sure either but my understanding is that applets, for quite a while, were considered the software delivery platform of the future. Just open a webpage and get an entire end-user program running right there, no downloading or installing, nothing. It turned Netscape into something of a universal app store and people were very excited. JavaScript very much was intended to let the rest of the web page interface with the software program (the applet) running on it. Your excite quote shows a key use case: ship a generic compile applet in a site which contains user-specific data, write a little JavaScript to send the data to the applet and poof, it’s personalized! Magic. That success never happened though (and I’m not sure why), and most uses of applets I saw were of slow, ugly navigation menus with hover effects and stuff like that.

toyg 3y ago

Arguably the real game-changer was GMail, which pre-dates GMaps. It introduced a lot of people to XHR, which was previously used only by people keen on XML/XSL.

skrebbel 3y ago
The innovation of Gmail was “so much storage you never have to delete emails again”. The UI wasn’t too different from contemporary incumbents such as Hotmail.
- toyg 3y ago
  It had that as well, and undoubtedly it was the main attraction, but iirc it was already not refreshing the whole page when clicking on the email index to read a single email - if not at launch, very shortly after. They later added "html mode" for compatibility with older browsers.
- zztop44 3y ago
  Storage was definitely the killer feature, but I remember thread view, good search and AJAX navigation to be significant improvements over eg hotmail at the time
blowski 3y ago
It was the Web 2.0 era. Delicious, Flickr, Digg, Netvibes, YouOS - they all had AJAX interfaces that used innovative techniques in JavaScript.
unscaled 3y ago
It wasn't Gmail that started XHR though. Gmail wasn't even first online email service to use XHR. The first app to use XHR, which is also the first email service to use XHR was Outlook Web Access. It's funny that Microsoft were the who were innovating with better features and a more coherent vision during the late browser wars, but they failed to capitalize on this innovation once they won the war and they could now just release IE6 with a shiny Media Bar and then fail to update it for 5 years. Nothing would ever go wrong, and no competitor could threat Microsoft, since all these toolbars everybody seem to adore are only compatible with Internet Explorer anyway. Yeah...

bazoom42 3y ago

JavaScript was not very powerful when it came out though. It couldn’t modify the DOM (except input controls) and it couldnt perform background requests.

pwdisswordfishc 3y ago

> at first hardly anyone understood Closures, and the full power of JavaScript being a functional language Especially that it wasn’t. JavaScript in Netscape 2 didn’t even have function expressions.

genezeta 3y ago

> For example at first hardly anyone understood Closures At first, closures weren't even available. I mean, in 1.0 and 1.1 you could only declare global functions. 1.2 introduced function expressions and closures. That was June 1997; the language was still changing quite a bit and it wouldn't be until ECMA standardization that things would become stable and clear enough for people to use. (Even though there would still be huge differences across browsers for years)