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When "The Bad" list start with the single word Javascript, it loses a lot of credibility for any unbiased judgment.

by Kesty 12y ago

thewarrior 12y ago
Especially when its using ES6.
nkozyra 12y ago
I think this is because you're interpreting it as "Javascript is bad" instead of "Javascript is bad for this purpose." I think there are plenty of places where the latter is a totally logical statement that needs no real further explanation.
- thomasfoster96 12y ago
  The article probably should have removed any ambiguity on the way it could have been interpreted. An explanation as to why javascript isn't a good language choice would have been even better.
cristianpascu 12y ago
He's pointing to JavaScript as being "bad" when the very point of ReactNative is to bring web technologies to iOS development. What did he expect?
fabean 12y ago
Completely agreed. After reading that I was immediate put off about the rest of the article.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  Why? Javascript is not without its thorns and glitches. What makes it perfect for this use, in your opinion? Is it just the general "I don't like something you like" reaction - in which case, what is it that he's wrong about here?
  - stupidcar 12y ago
    Who said it was perfect, for this or any other use? You're just constructing a straw man. The actual objection, which was perfectly obvious from the comments you were replying to, is with the use of the word "Javascript" alone without any further explanation, as if it was axiomatic that the use of Javascript is bad. When an article includes such an extreme opinion without explanation, it inevitably puts off anyone who doesn't share it. Moreover, it calls into question the ability of the author to review the technology in a fair way, and the purpose of them reviewing it at all. React Native's entire raison d'etre is to provide a native version of a web development stack. If you are inherently biased against web development technologies, then you're obviously not going to get on with React Native, or any similar technology.
    - fit2rule 12y ago
      I don't think that just because someone doesn't like Javascript it makes their opinion less valid, or that they are a poor developer .. by many professional, highly-productive developers standards, Javascript is a mess and ought to be avoided. For some, the use of Javascript to solve the cross-platform web development problems is a poor decision .. whereas your argument seems to be "everyone else is doing it therefore it must be good and anyone who disagrees with the collective mind is clearly stupid". Sure, I'd like to know why he thought Javascript is a negative. I'd also like to know why some think its a positive. But I fail to see how invalidating his entire argument is going to prompt that discussion. Seems to me like those who disagree with him about Javascript just want to shut down the whole discourse - whereas there could, indeed, be very good reasons why Javascript is a negative.
  - fabean 12y ago
    Why, because the entire point of react native is so you can use javascript to handle your logic in your app. This lets you bring in a ton more developers for your projects than just the few people who know Objective-C/Swift. So using a project and disagreeing with it's entire purpose for existing is silly without further explanation of why javascript is bad for this type of thing. In his argument he says they should be using Objective-C over Swift, which is just wrong. Apple says to use Swift, it's faster and easier to use. Beyond not liking javascript as a language it's super fast and easy to learn why not make it so more people can start developing apps using that language. It will create better apps that phonegap apps.
dcre 12y ago
I think you're expecting a little too much out of a one page blog post.
lucian1900 12y ago
But JavaScript is a bad language, objectively. There's little debate on that subject. Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  > Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available. Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion.
  - smt88 12y ago
    > Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion. Popularity has nothing to do with quality. Node is popular because so many people knew JavaScript anyway. JavaScript is popular because it was the only widely-supported programming language for the browser (other than ActionScript, which is itself an ECMAScript flavor).
    - ceejayoz 12y ago
      > Popularity has nothing to do with quality And that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. The statement "Most of us use it because we have to" is pretty clearly refuted by the fact that no one had to use JS on the server-side, yet plenty still pick Node over other alternatives (even ones they know well).
      - smt88 12y ago
        No one "has to" use anything, even if they only know that one thing. It doesn't take that long to learn a new language. I wasn't saying that people use it because they have to. There are a lot of reasons to use Node on the server side that are still unrelated to the quality of JavaScript as a language. 1) Easy asynchronous execution (something that is also making Go very popular) 2) Easy to get started 3) Lots of existing libraries 4) Everyone, including frontend devs, knows it already If you're starting a Python project, you're probably going to prefer hiring Python devs. If you're starting a Node project, you can hire anyone who has done full-stack or frontend work, including Ruby and PHP devs. Again, all of those are really compelling reasons to use Node, but they have nothing to do with the way JavaScript is designed. The seminal JavaScript book ("The Good Parts") even alludes to the fact that it's not a thoroughly good language. Further evidence that it's not a good language are the huge number of compile-to-JavaScript projects popping up (TypeScript and Go come to mind). I also went to a JavaScript conference, and not a single company was using Node through their whole stack, even for new projects. They were typically using Ruby, Python, or PHP for the bulk of their backend, and JavaScript was a thin API layer. I know this is also the case at Yahoo and probably some other companies. I could write a lot about why I (and lots of others in the dev community) find JavaScript to be Blub-y and fragile, but this is long enough already. The dynamic typing and many ways it behaves unexpectedly are among the major problems.
weavie 12y ago
You aren't limited to Javascript, any compile to JS language can surely be used.

When "The Bad" list start with the single word Javascript, it loses a lot of credibility for any unbiased judgment.

by Kesty 12y ago

When "The Bad" list start with the single word Javascript, it loses a lot of credibility for any unbiased judgment.

thewarrior 12y ago

Especially when its using ES6.

nkozyra 12y ago

I think this is because you're interpreting it as "Javascript is bad" instead of "Javascript is bad for this purpose." I think there are plenty of places where the latter is a totally logical statement that needs no real further explanation.

thomasfoster96 12y ago
The article probably should have removed any ambiguity on the way it could have been interpreted. An explanation as to why javascript isn't a good language choice would have been even better.

cristianpascu 12y ago

He's pointing to JavaScript as being "bad" when the very point of ReactNative is to bring web technologies to iOS development. What did he expect?

fabean 12y ago

Completely agreed. After reading that I was immediate put off about the rest of the article.

fit2rule 12y ago
Why? Javascript is not without its thorns and glitches. What makes it perfect for this use, in your opinion? Is it just the general "I don't like something you like" reaction - in which case, what is it that he's wrong about here?
- stupidcar 12y ago
  Who said it was perfect, for this or any other use? You're just constructing a straw man. The actual objection, which was perfectly obvious from the comments you were replying to, is with the use of the word "Javascript" alone without any further explanation, as if it was axiomatic that the use of Javascript is bad. When an article includes such an extreme opinion without explanation, it inevitably puts off anyone who doesn't share it. Moreover, it calls into question the ability of the author to review the technology in a fair way, and the purpose of them reviewing it at all. React Native's entire raison d'etre is to provide a native version of a web development stack. If you are inherently biased against web development technologies, then you're obviously not going to get on with React Native, or any similar technology.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    I don't think that just because someone doesn't like Javascript it makes their opinion less valid, or that they are a poor developer .. by many professional, highly-productive developers standards, Javascript is a mess and ought to be avoided. For some, the use of Javascript to solve the cross-platform web development problems is a poor decision .. whereas your argument seems to be "everyone else is doing it therefore it must be good and anyone who disagrees with the collective mind is clearly stupid". Sure, I'd like to know why he thought Javascript is a negative. I'd also like to know why some think its a positive. But I fail to see how invalidating his entire argument is going to prompt that discussion. Seems to me like those who disagree with him about Javascript just want to shut down the whole discourse - whereas there could, indeed, be very good reasons why Javascript is a negative.
- fabean 12y ago
  Why, because the entire point of react native is so you can use javascript to handle your logic in your app. This lets you bring in a ton more developers for your projects than just the few people who know Objective-C/Swift. So using a project and disagreeing with it's entire purpose for existing is silly without further explanation of why javascript is bad for this type of thing. In his argument he says they should be using Objective-C over Swift, which is just wrong. Apple says to use Swift, it's faster and easier to use. Beyond not liking javascript as a language it's super fast and easy to learn why not make it so more people can start developing apps using that language. It will create better apps that phonegap apps.

dcre 12y ago

I think you're expecting a little too much out of a one page blog post.

lucian1900 12y ago

But JavaScript is a bad language, objectively. There's little debate on that subject. Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available.

ceejayoz 12y ago
> Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available. Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion.
- smt88 12y ago
  > Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion. Popularity has nothing to do with quality. Node is popular because so many people knew JavaScript anyway. JavaScript is popular because it was the only widely-supported programming language for the browser (other than ActionScript, which is itself an ECMAScript flavor).
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    > Popularity has nothing to do with quality And that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. The statement "Most of us use it because we have to" is pretty clearly refuted by the fact that no one had to use JS on the server-side, yet plenty still pick Node over other alternatives (even ones they know well).
    - smt88 12y ago
      No one "has to" use anything, even if they only know that one thing. It doesn't take that long to learn a new language. I wasn't saying that people use it because they have to. There are a lot of reasons to use Node on the server side that are still unrelated to the quality of JavaScript as a language. 1) Easy asynchronous execution (something that is also making Go very popular) 2) Easy to get started 3) Lots of existing libraries 4) Everyone, including frontend devs, knows it already If you're starting a Python project, you're probably going to prefer hiring Python devs. If you're starting a Node project, you can hire anyone who has done full-stack or frontend work, including Ruby and PHP devs. Again, all of those are really compelling reasons to use Node, but they have nothing to do with the way JavaScript is designed. The seminal JavaScript book ("The Good Parts") even alludes to the fact that it's not a thoroughly good language. Further evidence that it's not a good language are the huge number of compile-to-JavaScript projects popping up (TypeScript and Go come to mind). I also went to a JavaScript conference, and not a single company was using Node through their whole stack, even for new projects. They were typically using Ruby, Python, or PHP for the bulk of their backend, and JavaScript was a thin API layer. I know this is also the case at Yahoo and probably some other companies. I could write a lot about why I (and lots of others in the dev community) find JavaScript to be Blub-y and fragile, but this is long enough already. The dynamic typing and many ways it behaves unexpectedly are among the major problems.

weavie 12y ago

You aren't limited to Javascript, any compile to JS language can surely be used.