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I feel like being bullied for having to learn Javascript to do web programming. I wish there was a push towards supporting arbitrary languages for doing web dev

I feel like being bullied for having to learn Javascript to do web programming. I wish there was a push towards supporting arbitrary languages for doing web development.

ChrisAntaki 12y ago
Well, that's possible with compile-to-JavaScript languages. Also you have the option of plugins like Unity, if you're going for something graphically adventurous. That being said, JavaScript is a powerful tool, if wielded correctly. It's so flexible. In a lot of ways, it's like a pizza. One man orders a pizza with anchovies, another with green peppers. And on and on. Eventually it's like they've got two completely different dinners.
- simula67 12y ago
  > Well, that's possible with compile-to-JavaScript languages. I have tried to read code that was translated to Javascript using some source-to-source compilers and they are very hard to understand. On the other hand for a language like C, it is very easy to understand the output ( assembly ). Don't get me wrong, understanding the intricacies of assembly for each processor architecture is a difficult process, but the rules that define assembly language itself are not so, there is an opcode and some operands and each instruction performs an action on the operands or stored state in various registers. Javascript ( at least for me ) is too high-level to attempt to read a machine translated output. Programmers need to know at least one level below the abstraction to which they are programming to.
  - jbergens 12y ago
    I would say the output of most of the compile-to-js languages are easy or at least non-hard to read. It is usually the minification that causes problems and you don't have to do that in a development environment where you usually attach your debugger. It's usually also hard to debug a running application written in a static and compiled language (unless you have symbol tables and similar).
- CmonDev 12y ago
  It's not like pizza, it's like dirt. You can shape it many ways but it tends to fall apart.

I feel like being bullied for having to learn Javascript to do web programming. I wish there was a push towards supporting arbitrary languages for doing web development.

ChrisAntaki 12y ago

Well, that's possible with compile-to-JavaScript languages. Also you have the option of plugins like Unity, if you're going for something graphically adventurous. That being said, JavaScript is a powerful tool, if wielded correctly. It's so flexible. In a lot of ways, it's like a pizza. One man orders a pizza with anchovies, another with green peppers. And on and on. Eventually it's like they've got two completely different dinners.

simula67 12y ago
> Well, that's possible with compile-to-JavaScript languages. I have tried to read code that was translated to Javascript using some source-to-source compilers and they are very hard to understand. On the other hand for a language like C, it is very easy to understand the output ( assembly ). Don't get me wrong, understanding the intricacies of assembly for each processor architecture is a difficult process, but the rules that define assembly language itself are not so, there is an opcode and some operands and each instruction performs an action on the operands or stored state in various registers. Javascript ( at least for me ) is too high-level to attempt to read a machine translated output. Programmers need to know at least one level below the abstraction to which they are programming to.
- jbergens 12y ago
  I would say the output of most of the compile-to-js languages are easy or at least non-hard to read. It is usually the minification that causes problems and you don't have to do that in a development environment where you usually attach your debugger. It's usually also hard to debug a running application written in a static and compiled language (unless you have symbol tables and similar).
CmonDev 12y ago
It's not like pizza, it's like dirt. You can shape it many ways but it tends to fall apart.