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Is option number 1 "Use JavaScript Carefully" really that hard? Bjarne Stroustrup's quote seems more and more relevant to me every time I hear complaints about

Is option number 1 "Use JavaScript Carefully" really that hard? Bjarne Stroustrup's quote seems more and more relevant to me every time I hear complaints about JavaScript. "There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses." Edit: Well this is hilarious. I started writing this comment with no comments on the page and by the time I submitted it several posts seem to complaining about the constant complaints about JavaScript. Great minds think alike or JS devs are super-defensive?

lmm 12y ago
Yes, it's really that hard. When Chrome fixes "undefined is not a function" and ES6 arrives with lexical scoping and classes, Javascript will reach approximately the functionality of Java 1.0 (plus lambdas, which sure, are a big flaw in Java 1.0) - only twenty years behind the state of the art for slow-moving large companies. I'm finding it hard to find the words to express how much better a real type system makes programming, but let's just say it would eliminate all the angst about callbacks and promises without breaking a sweat. Writing a big program in Javascript is like... it's like writing a novel in Up Goer Five style. Every time you think of something you have to stop and disassemble it into smaller pieces so that Javascript can talk about it. You copy-paste phrases that represent a word in your head, because the word in your head can't be represented in that language except as this four-word phrase that even then doesn't really capture what you're talking about. You write a paragraph and feel really proud of yourself, and then you realise that what you actually wanted to say was just a single sentence.
- xtrumanx 12y ago
  I'm not too knowledgeable about type systems but to me "undefined is not a function" is simply the by-product of a dynamic/weak type system. That complaint can be equally applied to ruby, python, etc. Can't I misspell a property or variable in such languages and get a similar error to "undefined is not a function"? Yet I don't see people complaining about them as much as JavaScript.
  - lmm 12y ago
    No, in Ruby/Python/etc. the error message at least tells you which property was misspelled/undefined. It's still bad (I would hate to have to use Ruby/Python for everything and would complain if they were the only languages the browser supported) but it's 10x better than Javascript.
    - xtrumanx 12y ago
      Oh, now I understand why that's error is such a big deal for people. I guess it never clicked for me since whenever I come across it I usually also have access to a stack trace or that line number which threw the error.
- bcg1 12y ago
  Woah! We're playing the Java 1.0 card??? Java is my language of choice most of the time so I'm not hating, but seriously, Java 1.0? I think you might be nitpicking... JavaScript is perfectly usable as is. They even ship a js interpreter with OpenJDK since 1.6... why bother if Java is so much better and easier to use? And also conflating a bug in Chrome with a language deficiency seems fallacious.
  - lmm 12y ago
    > They even ship a js interpreter with OpenJDK since 1.6... why bother if Java is so much better and easier to use? Because > And also conflating a bug in Chrome with a language deficiency seems fallacious. It's not a Chrome bug, it's a missing feature in every existing Javascript implementation that only Chrome is bothering to add (though hopefully other implementers will follow suit shortly)
    - lmm 12y ago
      First was meant to be: because there's real value in using the same language on the server and the client (if only for parts of the code), and on the client it has to be javascript. (Also because certain libraries, in particular for async, simply don't exist for Java because the sync version is "good enough")
- stevendwood 12y ago
  Certainly words like ListenableFuture<List<SomeResult>> fut = pool.submit(new Callable<List<SomeResult>>....are big that's for sure
- hyperpape 12y ago
  I program in Java and JavaScript on a daily basis, though neither one is my favorite language. Force me to choose, and I'll grit my teeth and take Java for the sake of static types. But Java today is not clearly ahead. High level languages should have either lightweight objects/dictionaries or tuples (my preference is for both, but you can get by with just one). Java lacks both to this day. And even "big flaw" is a pretty big understatement about the impact of higher order functions.
- tracker1 12y ago
  Classes are overrated. If you work from a more functional over oo mindset, you'll find that you really don't need them. Not to mention doing unit testing in JS doesn't require the mental spaghetti of interfaces or IoC/DI that it does in strongly typed languages. If you use a module/builder system in JS, you can do composition and testing that most other languages simply don't hold a candle to. Including Java/C# and plenty of others. If you include Browserify+BabelJS it gets better still. Just because you have trouble wrapping your head around the concept of modules or object composition without classes doesn't mean everyone lacks that skillset. /rant
  - lmm 12y ago
    > Classes are overrated. If you work from a more functional over oo mindset, you'll find that you really don't need them. I do work in a functional mindset. I still find that I need them often, for cases where one case needs to be handled differently from others, which is a very common business requirement. Something like typeclass deriving can help, but javascript doesn't have that. > doing unit testing in JS doesn't require the mental spaghetti of interfaces or IoC/DI that it does in strongly typed languages. You don't have to do it that way if you don't want to - even in humble java it's trivial to mock any object or none if that's what you want. I like having explicit interfaces - they're what make it possible to maintain big codebases.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
ahoge 12y ago
> Is option number 1 "Use JavaScript Carefully" really that hard? Writing larger applications in a team isn't impossible with JavaScript. It's just needlessly difficult. Well, even if it's just me, after a few hundred lines of JS, I really start to miss proper tooling. ES6 did at least add some structure and tooling hooks with classes, modules, default parameters, and named parameters (via destructuring). However, it's nowhere near the kind of tooling you get with TypeScript or Dart. Optional types are really handy. Just add some types to the signatures of your functions and you get massive tooling benefits (and basic documentation).
- tracker1 12y ago
  I've been using node-style modules for several years now... with simple modules and composition for object structures, I really don't need classes. The ES6/7 stuff does add a lot to the language. I think that async/await/thenables brings JS up to par with most modern languages... proper observable objects will help too. I find that people tend to have a hammer (be it ent-lib for .Net, or any number of other tools) and like to see everything as a nail. When you stop trying to force JS in a class system box, it becomes much nicer to work with.

lmm 12y ago

Yes, it's really that hard. When Chrome fixes "undefined is not a function" and ES6 arrives with lexical scoping and classes, Javascript will reach approximately the functionality of Java 1.0 (plus lambdas, which sure, are a big flaw in Java 1.0) - only twenty years behind the state of the art for slow-moving large companies. I'm finding it hard to find the words to express how much better a real type system makes programming, but let's just say it would eliminate all the angst about callbacks and promises without breaking a sweat. Writing a big program in Javascript is like... it's like writing a novel in Up Goer Five style. Every time you think of something you have to stop and disassemble it into smaller pieces so that Javascript can talk about it. You copy-paste phrases that represent a word in your head, because the word in your head can't be represented in that language except as this four-word phrase that even then doesn't really capture what you're talking about. You write a paragraph and feel really proud of yourself, and then you realise that what you actually wanted to say was just a single sentence.

xtrumanx 12y ago
I'm not too knowledgeable about type systems but to me "undefined is not a function" is simply the by-product of a dynamic/weak type system. That complaint can be equally applied to ruby, python, etc. Can't I misspell a property or variable in such languages and get a similar error to "undefined is not a function"? Yet I don't see people complaining about them as much as JavaScript.
- lmm 12y ago
  No, in Ruby/Python/etc. the error message at least tells you which property was misspelled/undefined. It's still bad (I would hate to have to use Ruby/Python for everything and would complain if they were the only languages the browser supported) but it's 10x better than Javascript.
  - xtrumanx 12y ago
    Oh, now I understand why that's error is such a big deal for people. I guess it never clicked for me since whenever I come across it I usually also have access to a stack trace or that line number which threw the error.
bcg1 12y ago
Woah! We're playing the Java 1.0 card??? Java is my language of choice most of the time so I'm not hating, but seriously, Java 1.0? I think you might be nitpicking... JavaScript is perfectly usable as is. They even ship a js interpreter with OpenJDK since 1.6... why bother if Java is so much better and easier to use? And also conflating a bug in Chrome with a language deficiency seems fallacious.
- lmm 12y ago
  > They even ship a js interpreter with OpenJDK since 1.6... why bother if Java is so much better and easier to use? Because > And also conflating a bug in Chrome with a language deficiency seems fallacious. It's not a Chrome bug, it's a missing feature in every existing Javascript implementation that only Chrome is bothering to add (though hopefully other implementers will follow suit shortly)
  - lmm 12y ago
    First was meant to be: because there's real value in using the same language on the server and the client (if only for parts of the code), and on the client it has to be javascript. (Also because certain libraries, in particular for async, simply don't exist for Java because the sync version is "good enough")
stevendwood 12y ago
Certainly words like ListenableFuture<List<SomeResult>> fut = pool.submit(new Callable<List<SomeResult>>....are big that's for sure
hyperpape 12y ago
I program in Java and JavaScript on a daily basis, though neither one is my favorite language. Force me to choose, and I'll grit my teeth and take Java for the sake of static types. But Java today is not clearly ahead. High level languages should have either lightweight objects/dictionaries or tuples (my preference is for both, but you can get by with just one). Java lacks both to this day. And even "big flaw" is a pretty big understatement about the impact of higher order functions.
tracker1 12y ago
Classes are overrated. If you work from a more functional over oo mindset, you'll find that you really don't need them. Not to mention doing unit testing in JS doesn't require the mental spaghetti of interfaces or IoC/DI that it does in strongly typed languages. If you use a module/builder system in JS, you can do composition and testing that most other languages simply don't hold a candle to. Including Java/C# and plenty of others. If you include Browserify+BabelJS it gets better still. Just because you have trouble wrapping your head around the concept of modules or object composition without classes doesn't mean everyone lacks that skillset. /rant
- lmm 12y ago
  > Classes are overrated. If you work from a more functional over oo mindset, you'll find that you really don't need them. I do work in a functional mindset. I still find that I need them often, for cases where one case needs to be handled differently from others, which is a very common business requirement. Something like typeclass deriving can help, but javascript doesn't have that. > doing unit testing in JS doesn't require the mental spaghetti of interfaces or IoC/DI that it does in strongly typed languages. You don't have to do it that way if you don't want to - even in humble java it's trivial to mock any object or none if that's what you want. I like having explicit interfaces - they're what make it possible to maintain big codebases.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

ahoge 12y ago

> Is option number 1 "Use JavaScript Carefully" really that hard? Writing larger applications in a team isn't impossible with JavaScript. It's just needlessly difficult. Well, even if it's just me, after a few hundred lines of JS, I really start to miss proper tooling. ES6 did at least add some structure and tooling hooks with classes, modules, default parameters, and named parameters (via destructuring). However, it's nowhere near the kind of tooling you get with TypeScript or Dart. Optional types are really handy. Just add some types to the signatures of your functions and you get massive tooling benefits (and basic documentation).

tracker1 12y ago
I've been using node-style modules for several years now... with simple modules and composition for object structures, I really don't need classes. The ES6/7 stuff does add a lot to the language. I think that async/await/thenables brings JS up to par with most modern languages... proper observable objects will help too. I find that people tend to have a hammer (be it ent-lib for .Net, or any number of other tools) and like to see everything as a nail. When you stop trying to force JS in a class system box, it becomes much nicer to work with.