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That doesn't change the fact that it has more flaws and idiosyncrasies than most other languages. We use it because we must, not because we choose to.

by lucian1900 14y ago

user24 14y ago
Where I work, we chose it. Could have carried on using PHP, could have moved to $otherLanguage. We chose NodeJS.
- camus 14y ago
  i'm sure he is talking about browser programming , what you do server side is 100% your business, nobody cares. And PHP is definetly not a good exemple as it is even worse than JS.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  When the alternative is something as stupid as PHP, sure. But there are much better languages out there that would entirely eclipse JavaScript, if it wasn't the only thing that can reasonably be used in browser.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    And yet, nodejs is a perfectly reasonable choice for web development for many.
    - user24 14y ago
      Exactly. The claim was "We use it because we must, not because we choose to." This is not true because even in environments where we need not, some of us still choose JS.
skrebbel 14y ago
This. JavaScript is in many ways a step forward if you're coming from C++, PHP 5.0 or Java (and a step backward in some other ways, but ok). People sometimes use that reasoning to call it a great language, or at least to call JavaScript's Good Parts a great language. Problem is, compared with other modern commonplace languages such as C#, Python or Scala, JavaScript simply loses on nearly all fronts. These languages all have all the points that the OP lists about Javascript, plus a whole bunch more. Only when compared to the hot languages of the nineties is JavaScript a serious improvement. That said, the fact that it's not awesome surely is no reason to diss it. JavaScript does have those Good Parts, and it isn't bad at all. Just not great either. Still, i can't wait until we can avoid it altogether and consider it some sort of bytecode that those old hackers with mustaches wrote by hand, back in the day. In text editors!
- lucian1900 14y ago
  I suppose people using JavaScript instead of C++, PHP or Java is probably an improvement. It's still sad that the improvement is so terrible.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    So now elitism is occurring for C++ and Java, both used for totally different reasons, in largely different domains. What's with that?
    - lucian1900 14y ago
      This has nothing to do with elitism. I simply find them to be pretty poor languages that I wouldn't want to use, for different reasons.
      - chris_wot 14y ago
        I'm fairly interested in your reasons, what is your language of choice?
        lucian1900 14y ago
        I tend to use Python for most things. It's quite expressive and it's quite simple to deal with, in particularly when things go wrong. There is plenty of good criticism for C++ out there. I would never use it by choice, but it is almost the only reasonable language to use for game development at the moment. Java is less insane than C++, but it's also extremely verbose, restrictive and inexpressive. The JVM is also annoying to deal with, in particular because of startup time, memory usage and debugging. Both have stupid, useless type systems that only get in the way. There is almost no value at all in the kind of static checking either of them does. While I see the value of a good type system (like Haskell, Scala, Rust and to a small extent Go), I have yet to be comfortable enough with either to replace Python to any extent. I've done "evil" things in Python in a pinch that I'm not sure I could easily reproduce in a non-dynamic language.

That doesn't change the fact that it has more flaws and idiosyncrasies than most other languages. We use it because we must, not because we choose to.

user24 14y ago

Where I work, we chose it. Could have carried on using PHP, could have moved to $otherLanguage. We chose NodeJS.

camus 14y ago
i'm sure he is talking about browser programming , what you do server side is 100% your business, nobody cares. And PHP is definetly not a good exemple as it is even worse than JS.
lucian1900 14y ago
When the alternative is something as stupid as PHP, sure. But there are much better languages out there that would entirely eclipse JavaScript, if it wasn't the only thing that can reasonably be used in browser.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  And yet, nodejs is a perfectly reasonable choice for web development for many.
  - user24 14y ago
    Exactly. The claim was "We use it because we must, not because we choose to." This is not true because even in environments where we need not, some of us still choose JS.

skrebbel 14y ago

This. JavaScript is in many ways a step forward if you're coming from C++, PHP 5.0 or Java (and a step backward in some other ways, but ok). People sometimes use that reasoning to call it a great language, or at least to call JavaScript's Good Parts a great language. Problem is, compared with other modern commonplace languages such as C#, Python or Scala, JavaScript simply loses on nearly all fronts. These languages all have all the points that the OP lists about Javascript, plus a whole bunch more. Only when compared to the hot languages of the nineties is JavaScript a serious improvement. That said, the fact that it's not awesome surely is no reason to diss it. JavaScript does have those Good Parts, and it isn't bad at all. Just not great either. Still, i can't wait until we can avoid it altogether and consider it some sort of bytecode that those old hackers with mustaches wrote by hand, back in the day. In text editors!

lucian1900 14y ago
I suppose people using JavaScript instead of C++, PHP or Java is probably an improvement. It's still sad that the improvement is so terrible.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  So now elitism is occurring for C++ and Java, both used for totally different reasons, in largely different domains. What's with that?
  - lucian1900 14y ago
    This has nothing to do with elitism. I simply find them to be pretty poor languages that I wouldn't want to use, for different reasons.
    - chris_wot 14y ago
      I'm fairly interested in your reasons, what is your language of choice?
      - lucian1900 14y ago
        I tend to use Python for most things. It's quite expressive and it's quite simple to deal with, in particularly when things go wrong. There is plenty of good criticism for C++ out there. I would never use it by choice, but it is almost the only reasonable language to use for game development at the moment. Java is less insane than C++, but it's also extremely verbose, restrictive and inexpressive. The JVM is also annoying to deal with, in particular because of startup time, memory usage and debugging. Both have stupid, useless type systems that only get in the way. There is almost no value at all in the kind of static checking either of them does. While I see the value of a good type system (like Haskell, Scala, Rust and to a small extent Go), I have yet to be comfortable enough with either to replace Python to any extent. I've done "evil" things in Python in a pinch that I'm not sure I could easily reproduce in a non-dynamic language.