4 ms·

I can't help but focus on the failings of the reasoning of the answer given here. I keep getting flashbacks to the late 1990s when you got that answer, but swap

by runjake 12y ago

I can't help but focus on the failings of the reasoning of the answer given here. I keep getting flashbacks to the late 1990s when you got that answer, but swap "Javascript" for "Java". I am failing to find sound reasoning behind the answer, which is essentially "Just learn Javascript, ok?".

kevinSuttle 12y ago
Throw an answer on the original thread. I'd love to hear your take. Sounds like you've got some more context to paint a clearer picture.
nostrademons 12y ago
If you learned Java in the late 1990s you did very well. Java remained the gateway into many corporate jobs well into the 2000s; all sorts of dot-coms, consulting, enterprise rewrites, and even startups and open-source projects were open to you. It wasn't until 2005 that Ruby/Python/JS started getting hot; before then people used PHP for webapps and Perl for scripting, but they were still nowhere near as general-purpose as Java. An 8-year run is pretty darn good for a technology in our industry. Pretty much the only thing that's bested it is C's impressive 30+ year run. And C was really only the hot, commercially successful language to learn during the late microcomputer era of 1985-1991, before which the hot language was assembly (for microcomputers) or Lisp (for enterprise), and after which C++ took over the microcomputer market.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Not to mention Java is still the #2 language used, and #1 on the enterprise.
coldtea 12y ago
>I can't help but focus on the failings of the reasoning of the answer given here. I keep getting flashbacks to the late 1990s when you got that answer, but swap "Javascript" for "Java". Well, I see a failing of the reasoning behind your substitution of JS with Java too, which you made only because both languages are touted as "just learn that". I find that looking at similarities never tells us anything important ("A baseball is like a planet, in that it's round"). What's important is knowing the differences. And the differences are many. Javascript is the de facto AND de jure standard on the web, while Java wasn't. Javascript is used all over the web -- Java applets never really caught on, while Java only caught on for enterprise and server-side stuff really. Java was the child of a single company, and not a very big one at that, Javascript is a standard and has competing implementation from all three gorillas (Google, MS, Apple). Java had a huge competitor on the same domain, .NET, and several smaller competitors for web apps and server work (RoR, PHP, Node, now Go etc). Javascript has no competitor (Flash died, and Dart is Google only, and compiles to JS anyway).
- spankalee 12y ago
  Dart is created by Google, but hardly "Google only". It runs on at least IE, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and of course Chrome.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Google only as in "only Google cares for it". It's not an industry standard, and no other vendor cares about implementing the VM or supports the core language. What actually runs on IE, Safari, FF etc is Javascript, not Dart. "Dart" only runs secondarily as a javascript target -- one of tens, and not a very popular one even at that.

by runjake 12y ago

kevinSuttle 12y ago

Throw an answer on the original thread. I'd love to hear your take. Sounds like you've got some more context to paint a clearer picture.

nostrademons 12y ago

If you learned Java in the late 1990s you did very well. Java remained the gateway into many corporate jobs well into the 2000s; all sorts of dot-coms, consulting, enterprise rewrites, and even startups and open-source projects were open to you. It wasn't until 2005 that Ruby/Python/JS started getting hot; before then people used PHP for webapps and Perl for scripting, but they were still nowhere near as general-purpose as Java. An 8-year run is pretty darn good for a technology in our industry. Pretty much the only thing that's bested it is C's impressive 30+ year run. And C was really only the hot, commercially successful language to learn during the late microcomputer era of 1985-1991, before which the hot language was assembly (for microcomputers) or Lisp (for enterprise), and after which C++ took over the microcomputer market.

coldtea 12y ago
Not to mention Java is still the #2 language used, and #1 on the enterprise.

coldtea 12y ago

>I can't help but focus on the failings of the reasoning of the answer given here. I keep getting flashbacks to the late 1990s when you got that answer, but swap "Javascript" for "Java". Well, I see a failing of the reasoning behind your substitution of JS with Java too, which you made only because both languages are touted as "just learn that". I find that looking at similarities never tells us anything important ("A baseball is like a planet, in that it's round"). What's important is knowing the differences. And the differences are many. Javascript is the de facto AND de jure standard on the web, while Java wasn't. Javascript is used all over the web -- Java applets never really caught on, while Java only caught on for enterprise and server-side stuff really. Java was the child of a single company, and not a very big one at that, Javascript is a standard and has competing implementation from all three gorillas (Google, MS, Apple). Java had a huge competitor on the same domain, .NET, and several smaller competitors for web apps and server work (RoR, PHP, Node, now Go etc). Javascript has no competitor (Flash died, and Dart is Google only, and compiles to JS anyway).

spankalee 12y ago
Dart is created by Google, but hardly "Google only". It runs on at least IE, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and of course Chrome.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Google only as in "only Google cares for it". It's not an industry standard, and no other vendor cares about implementing the VM or supports the core language. What actually runs on IE, Safari, FF etc is Javascript, not Dart. "Dart" only runs secondarily as a javascript target -- one of tens, and not a very popular one even at that.