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Yes yes, everything that's happening now has happened before with other technologies. Except this time: 1. it's in a runtime that is in more machines than any
by TheZenPsycho 13y ago
Yes yes, everything that's happening now has happened before with other technologies. Except this time:
1. it's in a runtime that is in more machines than any other in history.
2. can be loaded instantaneously with no installation procedures.
3. and no plugins
4. On almost any platform, linux, mac, windows, ios, android, windows phone, blackberry, palm, chrome OS, even game consoles. Including the nintendo DS!
5. is broadly accessible to people with various kinds of disabilities
6. doesn't require a team of 20 engineers taking 4 years to build. (which other tech has achieved, and arguably much better, but not combined with the other things above)
7. Works on miniature computer machines small enough to fit in your pocket, and can download your app wirelessly. From the air. in your pocket. FROM FUCKING OUTER SPACE
(incidentally, did HN skip out on the whole ordered list notation of markdown?)
edit;
To add a couple more points:
* SEARCH ENGINES can automatically index your shit.
* We have these things called hyperlinks which allow automatic, ubiquitous and pervasive interoperation everywhere.
I see a common pattern on HN where whenever the topic of javascript comes up, all you see is pages and pages of wretching about how AWFUL it is, and how you could do X in Y language Z years ago already. That's not the hacker spirit. A hacker looks at what's out there, and what's possible, shuts up, and builds something awesome with it. (and then wretches about how awful it was)
In fact, the WORSE the underlying technology used to build something awesome, the more proud the hacker is that they achieved it. Where's that spirit?
Sure it's not as nice to program in as your favourite language or environment, but it's come a long damn way. would you give it a minute?
- foobarbazqux 13y agoSurely 1-5 applied to Basic. Why not VB6?
- TheZenPsycho 13y agono they didn't. (what alternate universe did you arrive from?) And /not VB6/ because microsoft lost that battle. And not java, because sun lost that battle. And not flash, because adobe lost that battle, and not unity, because they haven't, and won't win that battle, for the same reasons all the others lost.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoWell, first of all you edited your list, so it's 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. Which of those don't apply to Basic, and why not?
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago1. it's in a runtime that is in more machines than any other in history. No. Never has, never will be. It's just a plainly obvious fact, no explanation needed. 2. can be loaded instantaneously with no installation procedures. No. see above. 3. and no plugins No. see above. 5. is broadly accessible to people with various kinds of disabilities No. What makes you even barely think this even slightly applies? 6. doesn't require a team of 20 engineers taking 4 years to build. (which other tech has achieved, and arguably much better, but not combined with the other things above) I'll give you that one, but not without a windows machine, and a multi-thousand dollar piece of proprietary software. I'll admit I am not sure whether you mean BASIC or VISUAL BASIC. But none of these points apply to either, 6 even less.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoAre you familiar with early Apple and Microsoft products? I mean Basic. 5 we can strike, the interface was text-only. 1 was true at the time Basic was released, and that's why "it's different this time" is not relevant there.
- TheZenPsycho 13y agoSo it was text only. That makes it accessible how, exactly? Can you cite specific examples of supporting technology for this? 1. was true at the time Basic was released, but so what? it has none of the "features" that we're actually talking about, and is less powerful than even javascript version 1. By the time visual basic had our beloved features, 1. was no longer true.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
- jack9 13y agoSome people haven't been alive that long. Can't blame them for their rose colored glasses.
- williamcotton 13y agoThis post is great. The argument that followed was an unfortunate case of miscommunication on both side, oops! JavaScript has many similarities to BASIC! At one point, yes, points 1-5 were definitely true. Thank you for reminding me! Don't forget about BASIC! Here's just a few of really big differences: 1.) BASIC didn't have a DOM. 2.) BASIC didn't have network abilities. 3.) BASIC didn't have advanced language features. 4.) BASIC wasn't didn't load and execute from a simple network request. BASIC was SUPER important to the command line PC-era, just as JavaScript is really important to the cloud-era. Microsoft and BASIC... Google and JavaScript... Because JavaScript is attached to the DOM, and the DOM, aka, web pages, are SO crazy successful at delivering, presenting, archiving and navigating media, it really adds a level of longevity to the language that BASIC could only have dreamed of.
- k3n 13y ago> 2.) BASIC didn't have network abilities. Are you sure about that? My C64 w/300 baud modem was able to hit BBS's...
- TheZenPsycho 13y agoThe c64 did, but could you download a basic program from the bbs and run it in place without stopping the modem software? Could that BASIC program then proceed to, in place download more content to view, from same, or any other BBS? We're talking about BASIC here :) Now, if you wanted to move forward a few years then the Amiga could do those things using some proprietary graphical modem software and a bespoke graphics/interaction language whose name totally escapes me at the moment. It wasn't BASIC. But, you know, you needed an Amiga to use it, and almost nobody had one. ..( a google search later and ).. oh hey, here it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skypix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skypix
- pjmlp 13y ago> But, you know, you needed an Amiga to use it, and almost nobody had one. At least in Europe, I can assure most people that could buy computers mostly had an Amiga or Atari ST at home during the 16bit days.
- luikore 13y agoAbsolutely not. These statements are boring because everyone knows there are javascript everywhere on the internet. But so what? We should pay more attention to GOOD languages rather than popular languages. It's not javascript a great language but the people made the products great people. They could do even better if javascript is not so popular.
- marshray 13y agoThe only great languages are the ones used to say great things.
- luikore 13y agoThere are great things in other languages and they are not so hyped like in the JS world. JS is more like a language used to say average (or below) things.
- TheZenPsycho 13y agoWhat about javascript's popularity, exactly, is stopping you from making something great? Use whatever hipster language you want, I say. The only question is how are you going to get people to look at what you make if you can't put it on the internet?
- reeses 13y agoI fink u freeky and I like you a lot. There's the stuff we wish we could have done 50 years ago but couldn't. There's the stuff we could have done 50 years ago but only one person could do it by making a $1m multi-user computer not so multi-user. Then there's the stuff we didn't even know about. They're all awesome. Yes, Javascript has genital warts, but I don't have to care. I can write sorta-lisp, which means I can layer my own stuff on top, and it magically works. I mean, emscripten! The things that I miss, like automatic image-based persistence, are coming back anyway, and they'll be fast, probably open source, and can be integrated in a hazy, drunken, weekend.
- kybernetyk 13y ago> A hacker looks at what's out there, and what's possible, shuts up, and builds something awesome with it. Yeah, but a hacker also doesn't waste his precious life time with subpar and awful technologies (unless he's forced/paid to do so). That's why in my free time I rather fire up emacs and hack away in Lisp instead of building JavaScript webapps.
- TheZenPsycho 13y agoa hacker wastes her precious life-time on whatever she damn well likes.
- CmonDev 13y agoYeap, the only way of dealing with a subpar language full-time is doing something in a cool language on side.
- CmonDev 13y agoUsing IE vs Chrome vs FireFox is similar to using plug-ins in a way, e.g. not all of them are using all the HTML5 features same way.