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0 pointswtbob10y ago0 comments

> A module doesn’t solve that kind of type confusion, though. Static typing does.

That's the root of all the problems, though, isn't it? JavaScript is just a terrible language.

Actually, that's not really fair. It's a great little language for writing late-90s Dynamic HTML, maybe just a little too powerful. And that additional power enables people to build cathedrals of cruft in order to Get Things Done.

I don't like Scheme (Lisp is IMHO better for real-world, non-academic work), but I still wonder how much things would have been if Eich had been allowed (or had chosen) to implement a small Scheme instead of JavaScript. The world of web software engineering would be so profoundly better.

Maybe WebAssembly will save us all.

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WarDaft10y ago

There are already some quite advanced compilers that treat JavaScript itself as just a web assembly language, you don't technically have to wait for WebAssembly. TypeScript (some type safety) PureScript (Lots of type safety) and GHCJS (MOUNTAINS of type power) all work right now, though the latter is still experimental grade.

But I don't think an initial choice of implementing a Scheme would have helped. The idea of +0 vs 0 vs -0 could just have easily happened in a Scheme, same too for the reliance on stringy types. Those are symptoms of a rushed design and an unwillingness to accept the temporary sharper pain of invalidating existing bad code to produce a new better standard (the exact same tendency - to dig in deeper rather than risk the pain of turning back - is literally how spies managed to convince people to commit treason).

Then of course there's also the great risk that, just like Scheme not-in-the-browser, Scheme-in-the-browser might never have widely caught on.

wtbobOP10y ago

> There are already some quite advanced compilers that treat JavaScript itself as just a web assembly language, you don't technically have to wait for WebAssembly.

Yeah, there's even a Common Lisp which compiles to JavaScript …

> The idea of +0 vs 0 vs -0 could just have easily happened in a Scheme, same too for the reliance on stringy types.

I don't necessarily know about these specific examples: the Scheme standards have been quite clear about their numeric tower and equality standards.

I think your general point about the hackiness which was the web in the 90s, and the unwillingness to break stuff by fixing things holds, though. And of course it wasn't just the web: I recall that the Makefile syntax was realised to be a mistake weeks into its lifetime, but they didn't want to fix it for fear of inconveniencing a dozen users (details fuzzy).

> Then of course there's also the great risk that, just like Scheme not-in-the-browser, Scheme-in-the-browser might never have widely caught on.

I dunno — would a prototypal language have ever caught on were it not for the fact that JavaScript is deployed everywhere? I can imagine a world where everyone just used it, because it was what there was to use.

And honestly, as much as I dislike Scheme, it would have fit in _really_ well with JavaScript's original use case and feel. And if the world had had a chance to get used to a sane, homomorphic programming language then maybe it might have graduated to a mature, industrial-grade, sane, homomorphic language.

But alas it never happened.

91bananas10y ago

It's easy to say things like this. It's a lot harder to actually suck it up and live with what happened. Try to make progress, remember that's what all of the offenders in this story are trying to do. Whether or not it is perceived like that by the community.

davidgrenier10y ago

Only comment worth up-voting I could find.

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