The worlds most used programming language is universally hated.
Part of it was insight, part of it was hope but what's coming to light is that players of all size want to kill javascript... badly.
jQuery was the missing event dispatcher, coffeescript was the missing syntax and google tried to bury it altogether with Dart. And now Microsoft offers up its own "solution" typescript. http://www.typescriptlang.org/
Typescript however has me paying attention. Mainly because it might be what I've been suggesting they do with js from the beginning. Fix it. This might be the set of actionscript style language elements and compilers we've been hoping for. We'll see.
I just watched the video MS put out on this today. They are trying to address the lack of datatyping, class files and interfaces. Big whoop.
I have a different take on all this 'javascript improvement' movement that seems to be happening over the last few years and it's fairly simple:
Javascript is widely popular because it's easy. Easy in every way. Easy to learn, easy to use, easy to copy paste from the web and easy to create absolute slop because it has no compiler, no datatyping and it is a completely forgiving language.
jAQUAN, you once mentioned that our industry is in her teens, well to continue with that analogy, javascript is that girl that we all knew that everyone has slept with at least once, most of us have moved on. But we still bring her to all the parties because we know she will always put out. This girl has been rode hard and put back wet and there not much left in the old girl, but every so often some fool falls in love and wants to make an honest woman of her.
Someday someone will develop a proprietary format that will be able to run everywhere and look consistent through out. Bandwidth and processing speed will no longer be an issue because the computers will be faster more reliable with secure connections.
People will use this proprietary system responsibly so it's respected.
Someday someone will develop a proprietary format that will be able to run everywhere and look consistent through out. Bandwidth and processing speed will no longer be an issue because the computers will be faster more reliable with secure connections.
People will use this proprietary system responsibly so it's respected.
Imagine...
Someday they will join us. And all the world will live as one....
Last edited by rynoe; 10-03-2012 at 09:57 PM.
Reason: Yoko broke up the Beatles
Oh I've put a lot of thought into such a tool but it would such a huge commitment that I'd have to secure VC just to start. It'd basically be the flash pro environment for html. You'd never write a line of js, html or css. But your work would compile to those languages. If you draw a square (using an actual square tool), convert it to a button symbol and add an event listener to it, you get a html <button> node with an id of your instance name, a segment of css describing the look and a snip of js responding to the click. Each of those things would conform to all of the browsers/version you ticked in your publish settings complete with resets, bootstraps and polyfills. Eventually there'd be a node-esqe server side counter part and a db layer based on mongo.
I guess with some of the tooling adobe is working I keep assuming that they see the need for such a tool and are in the planning stages. But I honestly don't get that company anymore.
I don't see why people hate on JavaScript for being forgiving and easy to learn... Isnt it better that its easy to learn? And I disagree on what rynoe said about JavaScript creating slop.
IMO, JavaScript is the easiest script language and the best looking. ( For 2-D stuff. )
A thread at a time, js isn't that bad. As long as you don't need to work on a team or maintain it. But thanks to the lack of typing and zero protection from the global space as soon as you want to implement good OOP practices or scale up your app, it becomes an unruly minefield on a tight-rope. No one is saying it doesn't work, there's just a vastly disproportionate amount of pain you have to endure and you can never completely remove risk.
I don't see why people hate on JavaScript for being forgiving and easy to learn... Isnt it better that its easy to learn? And I disagree on what rynoe said about JavaScript creating slop.
IMO, JavaScript is the easiest script language and the best looking. ( For 2-D stuff. )
It's an awkward juxtaposition really, you make a platform easy to pick up and accessible it's great as an entry point for people looking to get involved in development and helps to popularise the language, but for the same reason it facilitates sloppy coding. Early Flash/AS1 suffered in exactly the same way.
Javascript is a hateful master for anything large scale.
If only prospective clients caught up in the wave of pro 'HTML5' spin were likewise clued up
It'll come. Since so many serious programmers, who are used to OOP practices, have to catch up with JS I am pretty sure there will be changes/new languages as mentioned in this thread already. The only thing I am afraid is that again there could be browser/platform specific solutions all, why Flash was originally created. Who knows may be Adobe is already working on the next Flash-come-back solution, since nothing created after Flash is really satisfactory.
That doesn't surprise me. We are becoming more splintered moving forward.
I think Adobe screwed the pooch by discontinuing flash for mobile devices. Both Apple and MS want to close the door on cross platform languages.
The crazy thing about flash.....Sure the player is proprietary but any company can come up with swf export. Adobe never stopped MS or Apple from developing their own "me too" flash type program.
It was simply too costly to edit the flash player for every single mobile device it ran on. They had to maintain different profiles and relationships with every model from every hardware manufacturer all without being to charge a dime. Even without the huge hit from apple I think demand for rich UI on mobile would have gone down anyway. There's really not much practicality in types of UI that aren't already available natively. You don't exactly see flashy html5 mobile sites either (and not just because the production return on investment is not there). But Flash Pro and AIR is imo an industry leading mobile content platform already and with monocle just released, it's going to very hard to argue native or html development.
I don't see why people hate on JavaScript for being forgiving and easy to learn... Isnt it better that its easy to learn? And I disagree on what rynoe said about JavaScript creating slop.
IMO, JavaScript is the easiest script language and the best looking. ( For 2-D stuff. )
Because "forgiving and easy to learn" is not an engineering basis for selecting the most effective technology for a given purpose. It is a lazy or inexperienced individuals basis for selecting a technology.
"We don't estimate speeches." - CBO Director Doug Elmendorf
Because "forgiving and easy to learn" is not an engineering basis for selecting the most effective technology for a given purpose. It is a lazy or inexperienced individuals basis for selecting a technology.
I completely agree.
I don’t actually hate javascript, it was the first language I ever worked with and I have fond memories back in the late 90’s of discovering the language. I also am encouraged at the evolution of HTML and some of the changes advances in javascript.
What I hate is the javascript pundits who zealously are dancing in the streets proclaiming javascript has replaced flash as though their ‘team‘ just vanquished the greatest threat on the ‘interwebs’ and we no longer have to live under the oppressive tyranny of AS3. These are the same people who were and still are either too lazy to learn anything new or too stupid to understand the concept of OOP.
I completely agree with the argument that flash has been overused and javascript has been underutilized. On the other hand there are things that each can do that the other cannot. I confess as I look back at some of the projects that I have done and used some on the newest shiniest tools just because I could.
A good analyst will design system architecture with the best tools available in the right situation. I have seen old school managers refuse to use anything other than classic asp and javascript and others use every technology available just because it’s there. Both of these practices are bad.
Yea HTML5 is great and everything, but in the end it’s just the latest shiny new tool.
It's amazing that a system intended for mark-up that had logic hacked into it (scripts literally embedded into mark-up files) and is dependent on a growing number of third-party browsers to render is applauded in seriousness.
Clearly, software engineering did not have much of an influence on how internet technologies would be implemented.
"We don't estimate speeches." - CBO Director Doug Elmendorf
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Originally Posted by Frets
