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You're right, but most replies to you have overlooked the customer: Customers, paying customers, are accepting Javascript apps. Java was never good enough for

by diydsp 12y ago

You're right, but most replies to you have overlooked the customer: Customers, paying customers, are accepting Javascript apps. Java was never good enough for that to happen except internal to large organizations where aesthetics and user experience didn't matter. There may be a zillion crappy, similar overlapping Javascript libraries - and to my background it seems like a massive waste of time - but the fact remains that people, everyday people like my mom, sister, uncle and aunt are all spending real money for services accessed through Javascript. It is good enough. Should I tell them: "You know that website you like so much, e.g. reddit- it would be so much better if it was a native app on your PC written in C++, so, like, don't use it. Demand and wait for someone to re-write it in a proper language with libraries that have a proper pedigree. Then you can run it on a 300 MHz computer instead of 3 GHz." That'll never work! The javascript/PHP/whatever else stack that implements reddit is absolutely adequate for them to browse cat pictures and interact with their magic tricks communities. Now, diehards like me cringe because of the waste of CPU, but guess what - CPU power is no longer a scarcity. There are only philosophical and environmental reasons to wring our arms about using less CPU power. And possibly these concerns are non-sensical. Are we wasting the world's resources making fast CPUs so people can use inefficient sw libraries? Who knows. But either way, the point remains: Javascript's customers and users, and the services they demand and pay real money for all support Javascript and nothing other than a fanatic religion will convince them to change their ways. It makes me mental, but I've even been learning Javascript over the last few years. It's about the same speed (and variable scope) as the BASIC I used on the Apple 2 in 1984, but so what, I'm paying the rent with it.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
Customers are accepting web apps. They don't care if the apps are written in Flash, js, BrainFuck, Haskell, or morse code converted into asm.js via a transcompiler written in APL. But development is not a democracy, and the fact that n thousand projects use a certain stack doesn't mean the stack is fit for purpose. Take the security horror that is Wordpress. It's popular because it's easy to use, but from a professional point of view it's an infosec plague and server killer. The quibbles about js have nothing to do with its popularity. They're more about the overall lack of professionalism in software development. The underlying issue is scope. We don't have a cathedral, or a bazaar. What we have is exactly one (1) planetary network, made of a loose affiliation of barely cooperating nodes and applications. The original Internet infrastructure worked because the RFC process meant that the core features were designed and refined by peers. Hobby coding in the bazaar removes all elements of peer review. But the alternative isn't a UNIX-style cathedral, it's a revised set of standards leading - eventually, I guess - to a planet-scale operating system and shared library framework that takes away all the cruft by making it unnecessary. None of the current stacks are the right way to make that happen. So the issue isn't js - it's more that web stacks have become de facto operating systems for industrial computing projects without any of the rigour, peer review, or oversight of a well-designed industrial gold standard OS. And it seems that no one - or at least no one that Tim O'Reilly's authors talk to - is even thinking about how to create an OS of that quality.

by diydsp 12y ago

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

Customers are accepting web apps. They don't care if the apps are written in Flash, js, BrainFuck, Haskell, or morse code converted into asm.js via a transcompiler written in APL. But development is not a democracy, and the fact that n thousand projects use a certain stack doesn't mean the stack is fit for purpose. Take the security horror that is Wordpress. It's popular because it's easy to use, but from a professional point of view it's an infosec plague and server killer. The quibbles about js have nothing to do with its popularity. They're more about the overall lack of professionalism in software development. The underlying issue is scope. We don't have a cathedral, or a bazaar. What we have is exactly one (1) planetary network, made of a loose affiliation of barely cooperating nodes and applications. The original Internet infrastructure worked because the RFC process meant that the core features were designed and refined by peers. Hobby coding in the bazaar removes all elements of peer review. But the alternative isn't a UNIX-style cathedral, it's a revised set of standards leading - eventually, I guess - to a planet-scale operating system and shared library framework that takes away all the cruft by making it unnecessary. None of the current stacks are the right way to make that happen. So the issue isn't js - it's more that web stacks have become de facto operating systems for industrial computing projects without any of the rigour, peer review, or oversight of a well-designed industrial gold standard OS. And it seems that no one - or at least no one that Tim O'Reilly's authors talk to - is even thinking about how to create an OS of that quality.