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Comment by phaedryx | Hacker News Reader

"This is not likely to change in the next couple of years while waters still settle. But generally the downsides of using JavaScript are fewer and fewer."

"Give the community time, and they will come up with solutions to most things that are considered impossible today."

Okay, so JavaScript will be better/awesome in the future. I still don't see why my next project should be in JavaScript.

Every time I try to get into full Javascript, I come across so many things that feel half-baked that I decide to wait it out some more and go back to the tried-and-true tools.

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Can you please enlighten us and name some of those "half-baked" features you frequently encounter in the language?

It isn't the language itself. I actually like ES2015 and I'm looking forward to improvements. It is digging through NPM trying to find a decent library. It is trying to reconcile versions of node. It is the feeling that everyone it trying to follow the latest hotness.

I think that there will eventually be an abandoned javascript library for every noun, verb, and adjective in the English language.

So you're having issues with a few components of the ecosystem, why are you taking it out on the language itself?

npm modules are not an integral part of the language. It's just an optional add-on that you might explore on your own to get work done for you more easily and more efficiently.

If you're lucky and found a module that fits the bill perfectly for a given project, that's awesome. If not, that's fine too. You can either fork the module and extend it as you like or build a new one from scratch.

I don't know why you would expect to find npm modules that can get the job done 100% for you and all the time?

That's a totally unrealistic expectation and unreasonable.

If everything that we devs need is ready-made and our jobs relegates to only gluing stuff together like entry-level technicians, don't you think that would be detrimental to our profession as a whole as it would be a few clicks away for a bot or an algorithm to automate our jobs away?

> I don't know why you would expect to find npm modules that can get the job done 100% for you all the time?

Get the job I'm doing done 100% of the time, do the job they are supposed to do 90% of the time I'd like that, constant version churn, API changes, strange incompatbilities between things that are supposed to work together not to mention stuff like browserify/watchify which when they work are great and when they don't a complete pain.

Also makes me chuckle whenever it throws a ENOENT not because I don't know what it is but that a high level original browser dependent language is throwing it and not "No such file or directory" or anything friendly.

npm/node reminds me of the implementation of a server side scripting language implemented solely in JavaScript written by people who have only ever heard other server side scripting languages described to them on a broken radio.

Again you're lashing out at JS due to your experience with node or npm which none is part of the language itself.

That's like someone after ordering a regular Big Mac meal (burger + fries + soda), he complains that the dessert portion of the meal either sucks or there are too many options available and some are not optimal enough when actually there was no dessert included in the meal in the first place.

Can we get real for a moment here?

'Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.'

'A witty saying proves nothing.' - Voltaire.

I am not "taking it out on the language". I don't "expect find npm modules that can get the job done 100% for you and all the time". You are putting words in my mouth and then arguing against them.

The article is "JavaScript as default language and software stack"

I'm saying I don't want to use javascript as my default language and software stack. How do I use javascript on the backend without node and npm? Surely it is doable, but why would I want to? Other languages work great on the backend, they have standard libraries, and they have solid tools.

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