5 ms·

Is The Death Of JavaScript Upon Us, Or Is A Transformation Underway?

41 points by philco 14y ago

stuffihavemade 14y ago
"Startups identify with JavaScript. When you’re just starting out, you need to be dynamic. You need to be flexible. You need to be able to bust out a prototype that just works, and you need to be able to change it on a dime without recompiling your code. JavaScript was once the startup of the browser wars, and it crushed Java and Flash for the same reasons that startups have the ability to disrupt markets and displace the established players: agility and flexibility." What nonsense. 1) " When you’re just starting out, you need to be dynamic. You need to be flexible. You need to be able to bust out a prototype that just works, and you need to be able to change it on a dime without recompiling your code." Unlike Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, any of the Lisps, Lua, etc.? The real reasons js is interesting on the server side is code sharing and node's (flawed) concurrency story. 2) "JavaScript was once the startup of the browser wars, and it crushed Java and Flash for the same reasons that startups have the ability to disrupt markets and displace the established players: agility and flexibility." Comparing apples to oranges. Also, the term "browser wars" means browser vs. browser, not embedded scripting language vs. plugins.
ender7 14y ago
Does the title of this article propose a false dichotomy between two equally unlikely outcomes, or was that a giant waste of 15 paragraphs of my time? Look, JS is a lovely language, and it's fun to write things in Node. However, no one thinks that JS is going to become a "universal language", even though all the cool kids are writing the next great todo list web app using Node-powered hyper asteroids. Nor will Javascript "die out" for reasons that should be obvious to anyone. Some people will write backends in Node, but most people will write them via one of the other myriad backend languages available. Huzzah! Choices in backend development. Rejoice!
- beatgammit 14y ago
  I didn't read anything new there, except maybe the mention of ASM.js. JS is a fine language, but I've run into problems where I wished I had just a little more structure. I've started to turn to Dart, and I hope it catches on. My servers are usually in Go because that's what it was designed for. So to answer your question, I think it was a giant wast of 15 paragraphs. No new information, no new analysis, just the same old complaining.
- nickporter 14y ago
  > ...giant waste of 15 paragraphs of my time? Pretty much.
sek 14y ago
Flexibility is not the opposite of scalability. Maybe he means writing hacks, but then you have problems after 200 of code already. If he means dynamic typing and lambdas, that doesn't prevent Python from being scalable. Startup or big corp. The equivalent of Typescript is Google Closure not Dart. Dart could kill JavaScript one day, but that doesn't seem to be the topic here. What does the author try to communicate here?
jasonlingx 14y ago
>When it comes to demanding multimedia applications, companies still turn to Flash for performance. Huh?
- banachtarski 14y ago
  Games. HTML5 + js still loses to AS3/Flash
chipsy 14y ago
A bad article with a wonderful writing prompt. We've long passed the point where JS is considered foundational technology, with near-universal adoption. It's hard to understate what that level of standardization can do for the whole software ecosystem, since - in tandem with the push for better browsers - it's allowing a whole new round of innovation to take place.
angersock 14y ago
I really hate to expose my naivete by asking this but its mention in the article forces my hand: Who the hell is writing web apps with millions of lines of JS?
- krapp 14y ago
  I assume they're theoretically counting node.js backend stuff. At least I hope so.
AlexDanger 14y ago
I love language wars. It makes it very easy to identify people you dont want to work with.
pella 14y ago
#Mloc.js 2013 videos/presentations http://mloc-js.com/#videos http://mloc-js.com/#videos for example: Douglas Crockford (PayPal) : Syntaxation Michael Ficarra (Groupon) : Redesign of CoffeeScript
boomlinde 14y ago
The article seems to assume that the limitations of javascript is something inherent to dynamic language. It reads like the author has no real experience outside web development. For all we know, the only reason JavaScript "excels at being the glue of the web" is that it's the only widely supported client side scripting language for browsers.
opinali 14y ago
"ASM.js, a subset of JavaScript that runs extremely fast on modern browsers without modification" -- NOT TRUE. The author implies (either purposefully or accidentally) that ANY "modern browser" will run asm.js fast, or in other words, current advanced JS VMs don't need modifications to effectively support asm.js. If you believe that, just look here: https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/b3d85b68449d https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/b3d85...
michaelwww 14y ago
I had this eerie feeling that I was reading Thomas Friedman -- a lot of hand waving with little substance.

41 points by philco 14y ago

"Startups identify with JavaScript. When you’re just starting out, you need to be dynamic. You need to be flexible. You need to be able to bust out a prototype that just works, and you need to be able to change it on a dime without recompiling your code. JavaScript was once the startup of the browser wars, and it crushed Java and Flash for the same reasons that startups have the ability to disrupt markets and displace the established players: agility and flexibility." What nonsense. 1) " When you’re just starting out, you need to be dynamic. You need to be flexible. You need to be able to bust out a prototype that just works, and you need to be able to change it on a dime without recompiling your code." Unlike Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, any of the Lisps, Lua, etc.? The real reasons js is interesting on the server side is code sharing and node's (flawed) concurrency story. 2) "JavaScript was once the startup of the browser wars, and it crushed Java and Flash for the same reasons that startups have the ability to disrupt markets and displace the established players: agility and flexibility." Comparing apples to oranges. Also, the term "browser wars" means browser vs. browser, not embedded scripting language vs. plugins.

ender7 14y ago

Does the title of this article propose a false dichotomy between two equally unlikely outcomes, or was that a giant waste of 15 paragraphs of my time? Look, JS is a lovely language, and it's fun to write things in Node. However, no one thinks that JS is going to become a "universal language", even though all the cool kids are writing the next great todo list web app using Node-powered hyper asteroids. Nor will Javascript "die out" for reasons that should be obvious to anyone. Some people will write backends in Node, but most people will write them via one of the other myriad backend languages available. Huzzah! Choices in backend development. Rejoice!

beatgammit 14y ago
I didn't read anything new there, except maybe the mention of ASM.js. JS is a fine language, but I've run into problems where I wished I had just a little more structure. I've started to turn to Dart, and I hope it catches on. My servers are usually in Go because that's what it was designed for. So to answer your question, I think it was a giant wast of 15 paragraphs. No new information, no new analysis, just the same old complaining.
nickporter 14y ago
> ...giant waste of 15 paragraphs of my time? Pretty much.

sek 14y ago

Flexibility is not the opposite of scalability. Maybe he means writing hacks, but then you have problems after 200 of code already. If he means dynamic typing and lambdas, that doesn't prevent Python from being scalable. Startup or big corp. The equivalent of Typescript is Google Closure not Dart. Dart could kill JavaScript one day, but that doesn't seem to be the topic here. What does the author try to communicate here?

jasonlingx 14y ago

>When it comes to demanding multimedia applications, companies still turn to Flash for performance. Huh?

banachtarski 14y ago
Games. HTML5 + js still loses to AS3/Flash

chipsy 14y ago

A bad article with a wonderful writing prompt. We've long passed the point where JS is considered foundational technology, with near-universal adoption. It's hard to understate what that level of standardization can do for the whole software ecosystem, since - in tandem with the push for better browsers - it's allowing a whole new round of innovation to take place.

angersock 14y ago

I really hate to expose my naivete by asking this but its mention in the article forces my hand: Who the hell is writing web apps with millions of lines of JS?

krapp 14y ago
I assume they're theoretically counting node.js backend stuff. At least I hope so.

AlexDanger 14y ago

I love language wars. It makes it very easy to identify people you dont want to work with.

pella 14y ago

#Mloc.js 2013 videos/presentations http://mloc-js.com/#videos http://mloc-js.com/#videos for example: Douglas Crockford (PayPal) : Syntaxation Michael Ficarra (Groupon) : Redesign of CoffeeScript

boomlinde 14y ago

The article seems to assume that the limitations of javascript is something inherent to dynamic language. It reads like the author has no real experience outside web development. For all we know, the only reason JavaScript "excels at being the glue of the web" is that it's the only widely supported client side scripting language for browsers.

opinali 14y ago

"ASM.js, a subset of JavaScript that runs extremely fast on modern browsers without modification" -- NOT TRUE. The author implies (either purposefully or accidentally) that ANY "modern browser" will run asm.js fast, or in other words, current advanced JS VMs don't need modifications to effectively support asm.js. If you believe that, just look here: https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/b3d85b68449d https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/b3d85...

michaelwww 14y ago

I had this eerie feeling that I was reading Thomas Friedman -- a lot of hand waving with little substance.