3 ms·

I think you're going to run into trouble with the word "objectively" there. All languages have warts, and some are much worse than others. I actually think Ja

I think you're going to run into trouble with the word "objectively" there. All languages have warts, and some are much worse than others. I actually think JavaScript's warts are fairly minor compared to C's or Python's, for example, and PHP is in a different league. In fact, there are almost no other programming languages with JavaScript's basic features: Unicode support out of the box, proper lexical scoping with first-class function closures, high-performance garbage collection, and easy manipulation of strings, arrays, and dictionaries, for example. Python comes pretty close, with slightly wonky scoping and Unicode bolted on, but then JavaScript also has another Python doesn't, which is a spec with multiple first-class implementations, and not to mention a committee that is plotting a great path forwards into the future with fully backwards-compatible upgrades to the language.

mattdeboard 12y ago
Garbage collection is a function of the particular runtime, no? Which probably isn't anything to do with the language... right? I'm asking sincerely, these aren't loaded questions.
- gingerrr 12y ago
  while the particular effectiveness of a runtime's GC is determined by the VM, JS the language doesn't provide operators or types to represent manual memory management - so it's a pretty core feature of the language that whatever VM it runs on will use garbage collection (or at the very least transparent automatic memory management) to reclaim memory.
orangecat 12y ago
Unicode support out of the box utf16 support, which isn't the same thing: https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-unicode https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-unicode easy manipulation of strings, arrays, and dictionaries JS objects aren't dictionaries; all keys are coerced to strings, they lack basic operations like getting a list of keys or values, and iterating over keys can bite you if you forget hasOwnProperty. Python comes pretty close, with slightly wonky scoping and Unicode bolted on And equality operators that aren't utterly insane, a usable standard library, local rather than global scope by default, classes, namespaces, modules... ES6 does look a like a large improvement. Mainly because it fixes misfeatures and adds capabilities that better languages dealt with years ago.
- chase-seibert 12y ago
  ES6 admittedly borrowed a lot from Python. I just wish Guido had been successful getting Python supported as a first class language in Chrome; that might have actually given us a choice in the browser. Even then, I find it hard to imagine that ALL other browsers would have followed suit.

mattdeboard 12y ago

Garbage collection is a function of the particular runtime, no? Which probably isn't anything to do with the language... right? I'm asking sincerely, these aren't loaded questions.

gingerrr 12y ago
while the particular effectiveness of a runtime's GC is determined by the VM, JS the language doesn't provide operators or types to represent manual memory management - so it's a pretty core feature of the language that whatever VM it runs on will use garbage collection (or at the very least transparent automatic memory management) to reclaim memory.

orangecat 12y ago

Unicode support out of the box utf16 support, which isn't the same thing: https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-unicode https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-unicode easy manipulation of strings, arrays, and dictionaries JS objects aren't dictionaries; all keys are coerced to strings, they lack basic operations like getting a list of keys or values, and iterating over keys can bite you if you forget hasOwnProperty. Python comes pretty close, with slightly wonky scoping and Unicode bolted on And equality operators that aren't utterly insane, a usable standard library, local rather than global scope by default, classes, namespaces, modules... ES6 does look a like a large improvement. Mainly because it fixes misfeatures and adds capabilities that better languages dealt with years ago.

chase-seibert 12y ago
ES6 admittedly borrowed a lot from Python. I just wish Guido had been successful getting Python supported as a first class language in Chrome; that might have actually given us a choice in the browser. Even then, I find it hard to imagine that ALL other browsers would have followed suit.