3 ms·

If Netscape hadn’t introduced and managed to establish their scripting language before Microsoft steamrolled them, then the standard language on the web would b

by pavlov 3y ago

If Netscape hadn’t introduced and managed to establish their scripting language before Microsoft steamrolled them, then the standard language on the web would be Microsoft’s contemporary alternative which was VBScript — in other words, BASIC. Be careful what you ask for.

yen223 3y ago
Yeah, people here seem to forget that Javascript had actual competition in the browser space back in the day. It was very likely the winning browser-side language would have been a proprietary one, which isn't the world I want to live in.
- unscaled 3y ago
  While I very much wouldn't want to live in this world too, I'm pretty sure VBScript was an answer to JavaScript. Internet Explorer 3.0 implemented both VBScript and JScript (Microsoft's slightly incompatible version of JavaScript) at the same time. Microsoft of the 1990s seemed to never be able to decide whether they want to follow "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" or NIH, so they usually both implemented slightly-incompatible versions of popular technologies, and then shoved in their own in-house technologies alongside. That's how you got both ActiveX Controls and Java Applets (both sucked). That's how you got both Visual J++ and Visual Basic (J++ was superior), and later both J# and C# (this time C# was superior, but could you expect anything less from Anders Hejlsberg?). That's how you got both VBScript and JScript running on JScript (a little know fact that made it possible for me to script Windows 2000 machines without running through a decade's supply of vomit bags). If there was no JavaScript, I think Microsoft would have gone with something like ActiveX, instead of rushing to deliver their own a quick and dirty implementation of a scripting language. But we wouldn't get an almost-decent scripting language embedded in every windows machine, and I would have had to automate all these machines using BATCH files!
dgb23 3y ago
Imagine how much complexity, churn, standards etc. we could have avoided if they put a Scheme in Netscape (like they initially wanted). - language features like module loading, async, classes arrow functions etc. would be unnecessary or trivially implementable within the language - libraries like React et al would be much simpler - plenty of FP libraries would be either unnecessary or much simpler - things like "hot reloading" during dev time would be much simpler and actually work out of the box - simpler parsing and more cross pollination in terms of runtime performance - type annotations could be implemented trivially in user space, the runtime could evolve into respecting them for performance gains - tooling complexity would be much reduced because of all of the above

by pavlov 3y ago

yen223 3y ago

Yeah, people here seem to forget that Javascript had actual competition in the browser space back in the day. It was very likely the winning browser-side language would have been a proprietary one, which isn't the world I want to live in.

unscaled 3y ago
While I very much wouldn't want to live in this world too, I'm pretty sure VBScript was an answer to JavaScript. Internet Explorer 3.0 implemented both VBScript and JScript (Microsoft's slightly incompatible version of JavaScript) at the same time. Microsoft of the 1990s seemed to never be able to decide whether they want to follow "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" or NIH, so they usually both implemented slightly-incompatible versions of popular technologies, and then shoved in their own in-house technologies alongside. That's how you got both ActiveX Controls and Java Applets (both sucked). That's how you got both Visual J++ and Visual Basic (J++ was superior), and later both J# and C# (this time C# was superior, but could you expect anything less from Anders Hejlsberg?). That's how you got both VBScript and JScript running on JScript (a little know fact that made it possible for me to script Windows 2000 machines without running through a decade's supply of vomit bags). If there was no JavaScript, I think Microsoft would have gone with something like ActiveX, instead of rushing to deliver their own a quick and dirty implementation of a scripting language. But we wouldn't get an almost-decent scripting language embedded in every windows machine, and I would have had to automate all these machines using BATCH files!

dgb23 3y ago

Imagine how much complexity, churn, standards etc. we could have avoided if they put a Scheme in Netscape (like they initially wanted). - language features like module loading, async, classes arrow functions etc. would be unnecessary or trivially implementable within the language - libraries like React et al would be much simpler - plenty of FP libraries would be either unnecessary or much simpler - things like "hot reloading" during dev time would be much simpler and actually work out of the box - simpler parsing and more cross pollination in terms of runtime performance - type annotations could be implemented trivially in user space, the runtime could evolve into respecting them for performance gains - tooling complexity would be much reduced because of all of the above