3 ms·

I don't know you, but I'm guessing you are somehow in love with javascript and invested in seeing it succeed. The world is largely divided into two camps, the

I don't know you, but I'm guessing you are somehow in love with javascript and invested in seeing it succeed. The world is largely divided into two camps, the people who are in love with javascript and the people who think it is a sick joke. Those of us in the 'sick joke' camp would like to see javascript made optional to web programming, and not a part of our toolchain at all. If javascript is part of the toolchain at all, I will have to eventually debug javascript code, and javascript was written under the 'principle of maximum surprise' making it a very awful language to those of us who haven't based our careers on learning every single edge case (and every case is an edge case in javascript!) The other half of the world is the 'javascript is great' people, and they usually learned to program with javascript or have spent a large portion of their coding career inside of it. They don't see what the big deal is, it's a perfectly good language, right? Well, it's actually a pretty gross language that has one amazing feature, it is available on every computer without having to install anything extra. Please, let us have the OPTION of a completely javascript free web. The javascript fans can keep it, just give the rest us a choice.

hermanhermitage 14y ago
Justin, asm.js defines a `pseudo` bytecode. Which part of the spec isn't clear? Think church encodings etc.
azakai 14y ago
> I don't know you, but I'm guessing you are somehow in love with javascript and invested in seeing it succeed. I'm not. I just asked you two technical questions I was curious about, given what you said. If you had answered them, I might understand your position better.
klibertp 14y ago
"If javascript is part of the toolchain at all, I will have to eventually debug javascript code" And if a bytecode spec was written and used you would eventually have to debug bytecodes?
cpressey 14y ago
As someone who is more in the second camp than the first (JS is something of a joke disguised as a language), actually, I see asm.js as a great way to eventually kill off Javascript. Whereas I see trying to specify -- and get all browsers to implement -- a whole new VM, as quixotic.
- BrendanEich 14y ago
  You see clearly! Although JS, warts and all, is no joke at this stage. It will die hard, but my hope is that JS VMs become multi-lingual in as good a way, or better, than the JVM and the CLR. Certainly better in terms of diversity of implementation, reach of the Web, and consequent interop testing in the large. /be
smosher 14y ago
I'm guessing you are somehow in love with javascript and invested in seeing it succeed. In the discussions regarding asm.js I often see this tack taken by the folks who are opposed to it as a solution. Many people have an obvious hate-on for Eich and often Mozilla by extension. I will not accuse you of that. As far as 'the principle of maximum surprise' goes, I would recommend trying to understand how the spec is designed to accomplish its goals.

hermanhermitage 14y ago

Justin, asm.js defines a `pseudo` bytecode. Which part of the spec isn't clear? Think church encodings etc.

azakai 14y ago

> I don't know you, but I'm guessing you are somehow in love with javascript and invested in seeing it succeed. I'm not. I just asked you two technical questions I was curious about, given what you said. If you had answered them, I might understand your position better.

klibertp 14y ago

"If javascript is part of the toolchain at all, I will have to eventually debug javascript code" And if a bytecode spec was written and used you would eventually have to debug bytecodes?

cpressey 14y ago

As someone who is more in the second camp than the first (JS is something of a joke disguised as a language), actually, I see asm.js as a great way to eventually kill off Javascript. Whereas I see trying to specify -- and get all browsers to implement -- a whole new VM, as quixotic.

BrendanEich 14y ago
You see clearly! Although JS, warts and all, is no joke at this stage. It will die hard, but my hope is that JS VMs become multi-lingual in as good a way, or better, than the JVM and the CLR. Certainly better in terms of diversity of implementation, reach of the Web, and consequent interop testing in the large. /be

smosher 14y ago

I'm guessing you are somehow in love with javascript and invested in seeing it succeed. In the discussions regarding asm.js I often see this tack taken by the folks who are opposed to it as a solution. Many people have an obvious hate-on for Eich and often Mozilla by extension. I will not accuse you of that. As far as 'the principle of maximum surprise' goes, I would recommend trying to understand how the spec is designed to accomplish its goals.