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I can't be the only one who believes the name JavaScript should die in Peace. It was and still is the worst naming of any popular programming language in existe
by siva7 1y ago
I can't be the only one who believes the name JavaScript should die in Peace. It was and still is the worst naming of any popular programming language in existence.
- rs186 1y agoAnecdotally I don't know anyone who cares in the slightest bit about that. It's a name that has been used for a long time, and there have been lots of weird, strange name out there for software, but people just use it and move on.
- stronglikedan 1y agoI think there's some bias at play here. I'd wager that most of management still thinks JavaScript and Java are the same thing, and can't understand why their new frontend hire doesn't know how to work on their Java backend.
- Cheer2171 1y agoNo, it still causes confusion from new programmers, HR, execs who thinks JavaScript === writing Java Scripts. We're all in on TypeScript now and I don't think they're teaching Java much in university or boot camps anymore so it doesn't matter much anyway. But when every other intern came in thinking programming WAS Java.... Not great. Having to never utter "JavaScript" again wasn't the primary motivation to move to TS, but it is a nice side benefit. NB: But I had an intern say to me one day "did you know TypeScript is just JavaScript with types and a linter?" And I just smiled.
- ddtaylor 1y ago> No, it still causes confusion from new programmers, HR, execs who thinks JavaScript === writing Java Scripts. Anyone that stupid in 2025 is hopeless.
- latexr 1y agoIntelligence has nothing to do with it. You can’t deduce JavaScript and Java aren’t related, you have to be told/read that.
- javcasas 1y agoNeither you can deduce that car and carpet aren't related. For god's sake, even cars have carpets inside to add to the confusion!
- latexr 1y agoPlease don’t strawman. It’s that kind of exaggerated bad faith argument that propagates anti-intellectualism in society. I can’t believe I’m having to explain this, but you can show people a car and a carpet and they’ll understand how they differ. But if you show them two different programming languages, most people won’t be able to tell the difference. Just like most people see Chinese and Japanese, Swedish and Finnish, Portuguese and Spanish, and don’t know enough to distinguish one from the other, despite them having different names. They’re just similar-looking symbols organised in different ways.
- javcasas 1y ago> Please don’t strawman. It’s that kind of exaggerated bad faith argument that propagates anti-intellectualism in society. Sure. Now I'm guilty of all the anti-intellectualism we are seeing, and the propagandists get to walk free, but ok.
- dennis_jeeves2 1y ago[flagged]
- ddtaylor 1y ago> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. and > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." HN Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- creesch 1y ago> I don't think they're teaching Java much in university or boot camps anymore so it doesn't matter much anyway That might just be the bubble you are in. Java is still one of the biggest languages used in corporations across the globes for anything backend related. If it is because it is a modern COBOL or because it actually is a stable language with a solid ecosystem might be a matter of some debate. In the circles I navigate it is still heavily featured in various bootcamps.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rs186 1y agoSure, some recruiters don't know the difference between Java and JavaScript and have no idea of what those job requirements mean. But it looks like a competency issue to me. Have you ever seen a Google opening that confuses Java and JavaScript?
- smsm42 1y agoWhat are they teaching then? I mean, if you're doing a backend - and I don't mean tiny wrapper that wraps user input into queries, I mean the database engine itself - it's Java/Scala or C++ (hopefully not C)? Maybe Go? What else do they choose to teach for heavy industrial backend use?
- giveita 1y agoJS is better and you can make it a recurisve backronym. JS stands for: JS Script.
- StapleHorse 1y agoThis give me the idea of creating a dontion site that allow the user to donate in favor of a cause, but also against. Use only one variable that can go negative. The plaform keeps "only" the money on the losing side X2. For the lols. In these days and age of hate and confrontation, whos knows it may work.
- impostervt 1y agoHonestly think Go is worse. So hard to google anything about it.
- ricardonunez 1y agoAdd lang and that solves that issue. Although I agree that is a stupid name.
- shireboy 1y agoWas thinking the same. Not only would shifting industry to ECMAScript or something else get around trademark nonsense, but now that I think about it I do hear non-techy manager types get confused to this day and call it Java. Also seems like time is right as less is done in plain JavaScript- it’s Typescript, React, framework du jour, WASM. I guess the hard part is convincing an industry to use a different word.
- ramses0 1y agoAll in favor of WebScript raise your hands! :-P ...I am 1000x more in favor of *.ws instead of "Michael Jackson" of *.mjs
- no_wizard 1y agoI don’t know why they didn’t go with the more obvious esm since it’s ecmascript modules
- 3oil3 1y agoYou'r not the only one: Javascript makes me think of ads; Oracle of Symphony, some restaurant stuff I worked with; hard to describe the experience. Not very safe, designed so normal people are ultra dependent on paid-for support. etc But I'm not here to rant :) I do find that request outrageous, the true objective hidden, and I still don't grasp what the fuss is about anyway; in what way does it matter does Oracle own the name? Before being superseded by Python, wasn't JavaScript the world's most used language? Don't get me wrong, I'm no Oracle fan-boy, but why? And doesn't Oracle own Java as well? Sure, very different languages, but hard to say the same for the trademarked names, and Java is older. How about taking energy to do something else, something positive. 'JS' as somone said earlier, is pretty cool.
- NetMageSCW 1y agoI’m sure JS will Google well.
- oersted 1y agoApparently the codename for the prototype language was "Mocha", infinitely better! Even the release name "LiveScript" is much better. They switched for cynical marketing reasons, riding the "Java" hype, and to flaunt their partnership with Sun. Well, it did make some kind of sense at the time when the scope was much smaller. They had this rough idea of an interpreted lightweight companion to Java, back when lots of backends where build with Java and it was meant to be the frontend counterpart for some limited interactivity in the client. But they never got it properly integrated and they diverged very early.
- legobmw99 1y agoWe should call it UnTypedScript
- DonHopkins 1y agoSelfishScript. JavaScript credits Self as inspiration, but misses all the important things about Self. JavaScript copied: The name "Java", cynically chosen for marketing misdirection, not technical truth. The word "prototype" from Self, but turned it into a quirky pseudo-class system. Instead of living objects delegating naturally, with multiple inheritance dynamically changeable at runtime, JavaScript glued on a weird constructor-function pattern that always confuses people, with constructors you have to call with new but can also uselessly call as normal functional foot-guns. JavaScript missed: The fluid, live object experience (JavaScript dev environments were never designed around exploration like Self’s Morphic). The elegance of uniformity (JavaScript bolted on primitives, type coercions, and special cases everywhere). The idea that the environment mattered as much as the language. Netscape didn’t ship with the kind of rich, reflective tools that made Self shine. And most important of all: Self's simplicity! The original Self paper (Ungar & Smith, 1987, “Self: The Power of Simplicity”) was all about stripping away everything unnecessary until only a uniform, minimal object model remained. The title wasn’t ornamental, it was the thesis. Simplicity. Uniformity. Minimal semantics. A clean consistent model you can hold in your head. Less semantic baggage frustrating JIT compiler optimization. Dynamic de-optimization (or pessimization as I like to call it). Self proved that expressive power comes from radical simplicity. JavaScript showed that market dominance comes from compromise (worse is better, the selfish gene). JavaScript should be called SelfishScript because it claimed Self’s legacy but betrayed its central insight: that simplicity is not just aesthetic, it’s the whole design philosophy.
- snovymgodym 1y agoYet somehow ECMAScript was a worse name.
- tgv 1y agoI'm in favor of calling it ()=>{}, pronounced TLFKAJ (The Language Formerly Known As Javascript).
- nazgul17 1y agoWe should rename it as BrowserScript. The .bs extension is a funny bonus.