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JavaScript was a cute little DSL once too! I feel like the author missed a more obvious comparison between Puppetlang and HCL: vendor specific languages. When

JavaScript was a cute little DSL once too! I feel like the author missed a more obvious comparison between Puppetlang and HCL: vendor specific languages. When you consider them from that perspective it’s clear that the decision is based more on which company you trust to serve your long term needs over any point in time implementation details. Is that company Puppet? HashiCorp? Pulumi? The implementation details obviously matter but if you’re investing 7+ years into an ecosystem like the author did, then there are a lot more factors than just syntax.

eduction 3y ago
This is a good point but also a little circular since the good vendor specific languages tend to break free — like Netscape’s (and nominally Sun’s) JavaScript :-) (and I think SQL started at IBM but I’m not sure if they tried to keep it proprietary or make it a standard)
- schmichael 3y ago
  Sometimes! Google still controls Go. Microsoft has retained control of dotnet. Java more successfully escaped Sun/Oracle, but that ecosystem is still governed by a very small number of mostly very large companies. Regardless the author getting 7+ years of runway out of a specific technology is hardly a waste! My average technology switching time is probably closer to 5-6 years.
  - eduction 3y ago
    True! I think used Perl about that long, and probably Ruby after that. And those are (obviously) general purpose.
owlstuffing 3y ago
Yikes! JavaScript is probably not the best example of a “good” DSL. It’s a crap language that benefited largely from being the only game in town re browser access.
- schmichael 3y ago
  I mean how you define “good” is an endless discussion by itself. For the purposes of this discussion I think considering JavaScript a successful and useful DSL are sufficient. I share your opinion that it is by no means “good” by more mechanistic measures. :)
- eternityforest 3y ago
  I consider JS a pretty great language these days, my only complaint is the lack of a batteries included standard library that does the stuff underscore et al do.
dunk010 3y ago
JavaScript wasn't really a DSL though was it? Not in the sense of this article. Brendan Eich was hired to embed Scheme into Netscape Navigator. That's not the same as the kind of crippled templating languages this article is discussing.
- schmichael 3y ago
  One is procedural (JavaScript), the other is declarative (HCL). Both are (or at least were originally) “crippled” compared to “real” languages. Both grew immensely each eventually escaping their single-vendor origins.
  - dunk010 3y ago
    I don't think that this is a true comparison. JavaScript was limited mostly by its sandboxing, not what you could write in it. You can't really compare that to what HCL is and does.

eduction 3y ago

This is a good point but also a little circular since the good vendor specific languages tend to break free — like Netscape’s (and nominally Sun’s) JavaScript :-) (and I think SQL started at IBM but I’m not sure if they tried to keep it proprietary or make it a standard)

schmichael 3y ago
Sometimes! Google still controls Go. Microsoft has retained control of dotnet. Java more successfully escaped Sun/Oracle, but that ecosystem is still governed by a very small number of mostly very large companies. Regardless the author getting 7+ years of runway out of a specific technology is hardly a waste! My average technology switching time is probably closer to 5-6 years.
- eduction 3y ago
  True! I think used Perl about that long, and probably Ruby after that. And those are (obviously) general purpose.

owlstuffing 3y ago

Yikes! JavaScript is probably not the best example of a “good” DSL. It’s a crap language that benefited largely from being the only game in town re browser access.

schmichael 3y ago
I mean how you define “good” is an endless discussion by itself. For the purposes of this discussion I think considering JavaScript a successful and useful DSL are sufficient. I share your opinion that it is by no means “good” by more mechanistic measures. :)
eternityforest 3y ago
I consider JS a pretty great language these days, my only complaint is the lack of a batteries included standard library that does the stuff underscore et al do.

dunk010 3y ago

JavaScript wasn't really a DSL though was it? Not in the sense of this article. Brendan Eich was hired to embed Scheme into Netscape Navigator. That's not the same as the kind of crippled templating languages this article is discussing.

schmichael 3y ago
One is procedural (JavaScript), the other is declarative (HCL). Both are (or at least were originally) “crippled” compared to “real” languages. Both grew immensely each eventually escaping their single-vendor origins.
- dunk010 3y ago
  I don't think that this is a true comparison. JavaScript was limited mostly by its sandboxing, not what you could write in it. You can't really compare that to what HCL is and does.