4 ms·

Some other gems by David Mark http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.javascript/browse_frm/thread/3d90e8b8a8301462?pli=1 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.

by Rauchg 17y ago

Some other gems by David Mark http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.javascript/browse_frm/thread/3d90e8b8a8301462?pli=1 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.javascript/browse_f... http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.javascript/browse_thread/thread/2232c2e46e200cde/ http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.javascript/browse_t...

nzmsv 17y ago
Wow! After reading these, and the replies, I definitely agree with John Resig about that newsgroup: don't read. Or risk losing your hope for humanity.
- jrockway 17y ago
  It's sad that one person can destroy an entire community. But one can.
  - boucher 17y ago
    According to his LinkedIn, David Mark is now working at Sitepen, the primary contributors to Dojo. I guess he no longer believes that all JavaScript frameworks are completely idiotic...
    - mxpxpod 17y ago
      David Mark no longer works at SitePen.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  And yet I can't help drawing a parallel: comp.lang.lisp was famously full of the hateful spewing of an intolerant contributor, and for that both the group and the contributor (Erik Naggum) were basically worshipped by a non-trivial community. Why did Lisp produce that outcome, while JavaScript produces this?
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    It's basically the same. comp.lang.lisp and Erik Naggum may've been worshipped by a non-trivial community, but it was still a small community. The rest of us still hated it. I'm sure there're people out there that enjoy comp.lang.javascript too.
    - NikkiA 17y ago
      And as a simple perusal of threads that David has posted in shows, he has he fair share of 'you're absolutely right David, jQuery, mootools and all the rest suck' style worshipping. For some reason (which I could make guesses at) Usenet attracts this type of kookery, and when kooks gather, they tend to create this appearance that people actually value their rants and conspiracies. As a result, you get the perceived 'Erik is god' views of comp.lang.lisp, whereas people that try to read, or contribute, consider(ed) him and his ilk as a deterrent to useful discussion.
      - nostrademons 17y ago
        Basically every community has their heroes, people that from the outside look like cult leaders but from the inside look like wise sages. Hacker News and Paul Graham. Joel on Software and Joel Spolsky. StackOverflow and Jeff Atwood/Joel Spolsky. FictionAlley and Cassandra Claire. Haskell and Oleg Kiselyov. Google and Jeff Dean. Their popularity outside the community seems to reflect the popularity of the community itself, which in turn reflects how much it does for the world at large and how similar its values are to the "mainstream". I'm kinda curious why such cult followings develop, but it seems to be a near-universal feature of communities of sufficient size (basically anything over Dunbar's number, where not all members know all other members). I've got a few hypotheses on this but no answers.
- iamwil 17y ago
  Reading that made me appreciate the discussions here a lot more.
- NikkiA 17y ago
  Every Usenet programming language (and some that aren't PL related) community has a troll/kook like David. Over time you learn to read around them, or read them only for humour value.
webignition 17y ago
"Near as I can tell, [John Resig] has never written a competent script in his life (or written anything useful on the subject.)" That's quite a brave statement from David Mark.
- billybob 17y ago
  If Resig is incompetent, then 99.99% of Javascript coders should quit immediately. Maybe 100%.
axod 17y ago
I think he has a few points. If you disagree with some of his points, argue why. FWIW, I also view js libraries with skepticism. I'm not convinced they're a net gain for the web. (I'm talking about general purpose libs. UI libs obviously provide value). There's this misconception that working with the DOM is hard, or can't be done in a cross browser way without bolting on a big js lib. Even something as simple as a closure is routinely packaged up in a js lib as .bind() why??? Add to that the fact they usually do silly things like convert arguments to an Array etc just to slow you down some more. When you see news stories like "js lib X latest release is 5 times as fast as previous version!" You should not think 'wow that's great'. You should think 'jesus christ how could they have written it so slow to start with? How do I know they've written it properly this time? Time to stop using js lib X'
- mattmanser 17y ago
  This just sounds like you haven't used jQuery yet. Then you'll know why.
  - axod 17y ago
    I've seen jQuery code. It doesn't do anything particularly useful for me. It solves problems I don't have. I don't need to lookup elements in the dom, because I put them there. I already know where they are. I don't need a slow .bind() method - I know how to write closures. Look at one of the top news items - jQuery plugin 'behavior'. It just doesn't make any sense. Look at some of the source code. For example .addClass(). It's the most general you could imagine - can take a list of classes, or a function. Yet I'm betting most of the time it's being called with a single class to add. There's a lot of wasted checks and effort in there. It's checking the type, it's splitting the string on " ", it's checking to see the class isn't already listed etc etc Also everything is assuming it's operating on a list of elements - cue wasteful for loops when they're not needed. So, when you do the seemingly simple $('#myelement').addClass("foo"); it'll be cycling through the array of elements of length 1, splitting 'foo' on spaces, checking if 'foo' is a function, etc etc etc etc Those are precious wasted cycles. And for what? so you can write: $('#myelement').addClass("foo"); instead of: // I already have a js ref to myElement thanks, // and know myElement doesn't already have 'foo' in className myElement.className+=" foo"; </rant>

by Rauchg 17y ago

nzmsv 17y ago

Wow! After reading these, and the replies, I definitely agree with John Resig about that newsgroup: don't read. Or risk losing your hope for humanity.

jrockway 17y ago
It's sad that one person can destroy an entire community. But one can.
- boucher 17y ago
  According to his LinkedIn, David Mark is now working at Sitepen, the primary contributors to Dojo. I guess he no longer believes that all JavaScript frameworks are completely idiotic...
  - mxpxpod 17y ago
    David Mark no longer works at SitePen.
ubernostrum 17y ago
And yet I can't help drawing a parallel: comp.lang.lisp was famously full of the hateful spewing of an intolerant contributor, and for that both the group and the contributor (Erik Naggum) were basically worshipped by a non-trivial community. Why did Lisp produce that outcome, while JavaScript produces this?
- nostrademons 17y ago
  It's basically the same. comp.lang.lisp and Erik Naggum may've been worshipped by a non-trivial community, but it was still a small community. The rest of us still hated it. I'm sure there're people out there that enjoy comp.lang.javascript too.
  - NikkiA 17y ago
    And as a simple perusal of threads that David has posted in shows, he has he fair share of 'you're absolutely right David, jQuery, mootools and all the rest suck' style worshipping. For some reason (which I could make guesses at) Usenet attracts this type of kookery, and when kooks gather, they tend to create this appearance that people actually value their rants and conspiracies. As a result, you get the perceived 'Erik is god' views of comp.lang.lisp, whereas people that try to read, or contribute, consider(ed) him and his ilk as a deterrent to useful discussion.
    - nostrademons 17y ago
      Basically every community has their heroes, people that from the outside look like cult leaders but from the inside look like wise sages. Hacker News and Paul Graham. Joel on Software and Joel Spolsky. StackOverflow and Jeff Atwood/Joel Spolsky. FictionAlley and Cassandra Claire. Haskell and Oleg Kiselyov. Google and Jeff Dean. Their popularity outside the community seems to reflect the popularity of the community itself, which in turn reflects how much it does for the world at large and how similar its values are to the "mainstream". I'm kinda curious why such cult followings develop, but it seems to be a near-universal feature of communities of sufficient size (basically anything over Dunbar's number, where not all members know all other members). I've got a few hypotheses on this but no answers.
iamwil 17y ago
Reading that made me appreciate the discussions here a lot more.
NikkiA 17y ago
Every Usenet programming language (and some that aren't PL related) community has a troll/kook like David. Over time you learn to read around them, or read them only for humour value.

webignition 17y ago

"Near as I can tell, [John Resig] has never written a competent script in his life (or written anything useful on the subject.)" That's quite a brave statement from David Mark.

billybob 17y ago
If Resig is incompetent, then 99.99% of Javascript coders should quit immediately. Maybe 100%.

axod 17y ago

I think he has a few points. If you disagree with some of his points, argue why. FWIW, I also view js libraries with skepticism. I'm not convinced they're a net gain for the web. (I'm talking about general purpose libs. UI libs obviously provide value). There's this misconception that working with the DOM is hard, or can't be done in a cross browser way without bolting on a big js lib. Even something as simple as a closure is routinely packaged up in a js lib as .bind() why??? Add to that the fact they usually do silly things like convert arguments to an Array etc just to slow you down some more. When you see news stories like "js lib X latest release is 5 times as fast as previous version!" You should not think 'wow that's great'. You should think 'jesus christ how could they have written it so slow to start with? How do I know they've written it properly this time? Time to stop using js lib X'

mattmanser 17y ago
This just sounds like you haven't used jQuery yet. Then you'll know why.
- axod 17y ago
  I've seen jQuery code. It doesn't do anything particularly useful for me. It solves problems I don't have. I don't need to lookup elements in the dom, because I put them there. I already know where they are. I don't need a slow .bind() method - I know how to write closures. Look at one of the top news items - jQuery plugin 'behavior'. It just doesn't make any sense. Look at some of the source code. For example .addClass(). It's the most general you could imagine - can take a list of classes, or a function. Yet I'm betting most of the time it's being called with a single class to add. There's a lot of wasted checks and effort in there. It's checking the type, it's splitting the string on " ", it's checking to see the class isn't already listed etc etc Also everything is assuming it's operating on a list of elements - cue wasteful for loops when they're not needed. So, when you do the seemingly simple $('#myelement').addClass("foo"); it'll be cycling through the array of elements of length 1, splitting 'foo' on spaces, checking if 'foo' is a function, etc etc etc etc Those are precious wasted cycles. And for what? so you can write: $('#myelement').addClass("foo"); instead of: // I already have a js ref to myElement thanks, // and know myElement doesn't already have 'foo' in className myElement.className+=" foo"; </rant>