Fuck JavaScript

submitted by Vulptex from self.whatever

Seriously, why are browsers still using exclusively this language? Why did they even adopt it in the first place? It's clunky, tricky, ugly, slow, confusing, odd, and it never works right. And worst of all, people seem to think it's a good language for beginners! What?! Probably the only thing worse than JS is Brainfuck. Even literal fucking assembly is a breeze compared to JS.

Of course the worst language of all is the one you absolutely have to use. For literally everything else there are tons of different languages to choose from, but if you want to do anything at all with webpages you have to use JS. If you don't like C, C++, C#, Java, Fortran, Python, Rust, or literally anything else, no problem, just use a different one. But EVERYONE has to deal with JavaScript, there are no alternatives.

I hope they finish web assembly soon. Right now you still have to do most things with JS, which sort of defeats the purpose. I hope you can do all web assembly in the near future.

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[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Yes, fuck Javascript, it is truly an abomination.

Even literal fucking assembly is a breeze compared to JS.

Yeah no, joke, would rather write assembly than JS any day

Now there are a few alternatives. Dart/Flutter is actually a really excellent cross-platform UI framework for targetting mobile and desktop devices (it even targets linux). This is by far my preferred option for UIs for non-web applicaitons. There is Flutter-Web too, but the performance is pretty terrible. For web you can avoid writing JS with web assembly, although as you mention, yeah you are not totally rid of it as you still need the JS hooks, at least for now

[–]Vulptex[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The standard for desktop UIs is Qt. I'm weary of it because it's proprietary, requires a lot of baggage (even has its own IDE), and the only language you can use is C++ (I guess the devs don't know what extern "C" is). I don't hate C++ as much as I make myself sound like I do, but I don't like having to use one language like that. Though at least in this case I can search for or even write libraries that don't have this downside. I think Firefox did that, I'm not sure why though. I avoid game engines like Unity and Unreal for the same reason (plus they remind me of Alice, which probably isn't a good sign, and they're just an odd concept to me).

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Qt is ancient, and has the issues you mention. If you aren't doing heavy animations, Flutter will perform like you want with way less headache, I would seriously recommend Flutter over Qt for almost any project you would have looked at Qt for. Unless you are doing something really animation heavy. It is gaining a lot of traction for linux development

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Qt is useful for cross-platform GUIs. Without it you have to rewrite the GUI for every platform.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Qt is useful for cross-platform GUIs. Without it you have to rewrite the GUI for every platform.

Again, I can't promise you will like Flutter, but this is what Flutter offers as well, I'd take a look at it if you aren't totally satisfied with Qt or JS. I personally prefer it to those options, obviously YMMV

[–]ID10T 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The history of JS is pretty interesting. Brendan Eich wrote the first iteration of it in a few weeks, which is pretty amazing. https://www.javascriptinstitute.org/javascript-tutorial/history-of-javascript/

It was never intended to be a full blown language, just a simple scripting tool to add some interactive functionality to the very limited browsers of the time.

That being said, I'm a fan of typescript having worked on a very popular platform that uses it, NodeJS backend, React frontend. I prefer python, but I don't hate typescript.

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I would like to use C in web development. I know that sounds stupid, but it's actually a pretty easy language unlike everyone thinks. Really, it's simple and very sturdy, basically the exact opposite of JavaScript. C++ isn't hard either, what's almost impossible is learning all of it, which isn't really necessary. It's a bit tricky which is why I tend to prefer C, but if you survived JavaScript you can definitely handle it.

I think Java used to work in web browsers, I don't know why they got rid of it. I only know this because apparently you used to be able to play Minecraft in your browser. I suppose with web assembly that will one day be possible once again.

[–]ID10T 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Java only worked in browsers via a plugin, and was the biggest security hole ever. Way worse than flash was. JavaScript came first though, before they had plugins.

[–]Vulptex[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't think JavaScript is the most secure thing either.

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

JS is pretty amazing for one person creating it in a few weeks. Unfortunately I don't feel like it's been developed much beyond that point.

[–]zyxzevn🐈‍⬛ 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

"Worse is Better"
If it works just enough and free, it will be adapted as a first standard. A lot of companies have to invest a lot of work in it and this makes it even more a standard. So it becomes an endless pit of bad design that works if you keep working on it.

In the mean time, I can still run my old pascal programs with hardly any changes.
Currently I see the most future in Nim and Elixir.

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The vast majority of languages are free. Also the proprietary solution tends to dominate first, and a free one usually overtakes it about a decade later.

[–]being-poisoned 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Fuck Adobe Flash

[–]SoCo 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have to agree. It seems browsers have steered this and what browsers want is being steered advertisers and data spies.

[–]thoughtcriminal 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Try typescript instead. It compiles to JS and is a lot easier to work with.

[–]iDontShift 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

tricky confusing

these appear to be the core components of what is selected for the masses

partly to keep people out, make em feel stupid

partly so people can hide their shenanigans..

the histories claim one thing, but my instincts say no way something so shitty should have survived this long without outside influence

btw the english language is equally fucked in terms of complication

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

English is complicated indeed, most other languages are at least twice as bad though. And yet other countries can speak 2-3 languages including English more fluently than we can speak English. We're retards.

[–]EternalSunset 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Thank fucking god that AI is going to kill front-end development.

[–]sproketboy 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Thank fucking god that AI is going to kill all of us.

FTFY

[–]EternalSunset 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The tech oligarchs are instrumentalizing our fear of AI and the calls for AI safety in order to ensure that AI is developed in a direction that advantages them and that does not challenge the status quo.

[–]sproketboy 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, how else should we do AI? It all ends the same way - with all of us in the oven so fuck off fed.

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Not so fast. It's going to be terrible at first like compilers used to be terrible at generating machine instructions, and Java used to be terrible at executing its programs. It will one day surpass humans like them, but I don't think that's going to happen in 5 years.

[–]package 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Pretty sure you've had this rant already, and like I said last time: modern js is extremely readable and expressive and for 99.999% of typical real world programming tasks language choice is less about runtime performance and more about succinctly describing the behaviors of a program.

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

JavaScript is the least readable language ever. And it's super clunky. No other language I've used has even come close: C, C++, Java, Python, not even Assembly. No language has made me want to rip my hair out like JS does. It being slow isn't usually that big of an issue, but the fact that other languages perform better and are easier to use...that shouldn't be.

I think C is the easiest and most readable language. There's no surprises, and it's not complicated. Too bad there's almost no libraries out there for it.

[–]sproketboy 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"10 days!" - That's Brenden ECHHHHHs answer.

[–]bucetao6969 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

If you're using JavaScript and not typescript, that's on you.

If you think assembly is easier, then use WebAssembly instead :)

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Web assembly can't really do much yet. You still have to do almost everything through JavaScript.

[–]pattis 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We're in the new Holocaust and pretty soon the rich don't need you to clean their toilets and to cook their food and they damn f***** sure don't need you to write no stupid software for them they're going to kill all of you yep the robots can feed the cows the robots can grow the corn and the rich can just lounge around on the yachts

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/C_to_wasm??a=4