Hacker News Reader

Comment by ncantelmo | Hacker News Reader

I agree completely, but I would take it a step further:

If wasm doesn't overtake JS, something else that offers native bindings to other languages will eventually. There are huge benefits to be had for teams that want to be able to code their full stack in a language that isn't JS.

We never asked for JavaScript (well the vast majority of us), but we've been stuck with it for the past two decades for all things web. Now that a doorway to replacing it with a general-purpose solution has been cracked, I expect the industry to kick it wide open as soon as possible. Not because JS is bad per se (it has certainly gotten much better), but because a lot of developers would simply prefer to use something else.

View on HN

> something else that offers native bindings to other languages will eventually...

No it won't.

This is our one chance to kill javascript; if we don't do it now, it'll be entrenched forever, and best we'll ever get is 'compiles-to-js' languages like clojurescript and typescript.

Let's be realistic; who has the man power, community good will and business savvy to push an entirely new language across all platforms, mobile and desktop?

Microsoft? Come on. Apple? Google? Google tried with dart and failed.

Who else, seriously, is going to step up?

We can day dream about the magical 'no js' world, but it's never going to happen if web assembly doesn't work.

Currently we're seeing the reverse, js stretched off the browser, onto the server, into mobiles, onto iot devices.

You've got to layout some pretty damn fine arguments about why that trend is going to suddenly reverse.

Web assembly is pretty much our last best chance to flip javascript off and have something better...but it might already be too late for that to work. :/

I don't quite agree with the all-or-nothing assessment, but your passion is exactly why this will happen.

Too many of the silent developer masses (probably mostly back-end engineers) have and continue to feel this way about being stuck with JS. The genie's out of the bottle, it's not going back in.

> This is our one chance to kill javascript; if we don't do it now, it'll be entrenched forever, and best we'll ever get is 'compiles-to-js' languages like clojurescript and typescript.

Do people really hate JavaScript that much? I've grown fond of it in recent years, especially after ES6.

Yes. People really hate JavaScript that much. ES6 brought some sanity to the language, but I continue to be firmly in the camp of continuing to hate and despise its existence.

Weird. I remember hating it ages ago. So much so that I was developing a Python->JavaScript transpiler (before all the cool kids were writing transpilers!) and blogging about how bad it was [1].

Granted, that was back in 2008 and most of my complaints have been addressed now almost a decade later (except for destructors, it still doesn't have those, but I also don't need them anymore).

These days I move between JavaScript, Python, Go, and C seamlessly and I can honestly say that I don't hate any of them as much as clients, managers, and 3rd party code.

[1] http://davywybiral.blogspot.com/2008/01/javascript-bad.html

People have definitely had and continue to have successful careers in, and many actually enjoy, JS.

I would never debate that. I think language choice for many people is a personal decision. There are some that I will hold my nose and use; not even complain too much. There are others that the minute there is an alternative to, I would use that instead. JS is in the latter camp for me.

If it helps, my current favorite language is Rust... they may be syntactically similar, but I just can't stand the semantics, or lack there of, of JS.

This could be said for any language.

Yes. People really hate C that much. C++ brought some sanity to the language, but I continue to be firmly in the camp of continuing to hate and despise its existence.

It's a bit different. For system level programming you have a choice to get around C/C++.

For browser programming, or full stack in a single language, you have less choice, and none if you reject transpiling.

Right, with JS there's almost no choice. C/C++ I actually really like, but I fear the great harm that I can inflict upon myself and others with them.

Anyway, the nouns are important.

These people are probably over represented here else things like Node.js, Electron would have never existed - and be successful.

Electron is awesome. And with webassembly, I think electron will be even better. Electrons success is because it offers a single Dev experience across all major platforms, windows, macOS, Linux and the web.

It's a great container for reducing the work to deliver code across platforms.

JavaScript is a necessary evil right now; it's the least common denominator for delivery. I would probably choose typescript if I were starting a new app right now to target it, though I want to play with Rust and webassembly soon.

It's success is not bc of JavaScript; it's because it merges the cross platform Dev experience.

I really do hate javascript that much. It was somewhat acceptable when it was confined to the browser for simple scripting. But the more complicated the application and the more it moves out of the browser the more it's flaws get magnified.

Absolutely

I don't hate JS but would rather write my web codebase in something else, something that has a standard lib for instance. ES6 is also a transpile to JS language on the browser. The main problem is that we are stuck with ancient JS on the browser and WASM could fix that. Wouldn't you rather conpile ES6 to WASM instead of JS?

browsers that support WASM will support ES6 natively. compiling ES6 to WASM would not be a good idea, since you would have to send a garbage collector and full dynamic language runtime down the pipe instead of just using the one in the browser.

wouldn't you rather just run ES6 right in the browser instead of compiling it first at all?

If all major browsers support 100% of the spec and every implementation is bug to bug compatible with the others, yes, I would rather run ES6 directly in the browser. The problem is fragmentation and not supporting the whole spec -- some functions working in Firefox and Chrome and not implemented in IE/Edge or Safari.

Has any runtime anywhere had 100% compatibility with anything ever?

Not everyone can use ES6 or transpilers.

For example, on the type of projects I work on, all tooling is certified by customers IT and anything extra requires change request, that might get approved, or not.

The lack of choice has to be hated. Some hate JS just for that.

I don't hate it, I just don't find it as productive as the server side language I use.

Wild guess? Oracle with Java.

:troll: well played.

Not the intention, but I see that interpretation. It's not hard to imagine oracle making a netbeans plugin for free and an expensive enterprise version that's faster. Selling point is leveraging existing back end skills.

Java already compiles to JS via Kotlin.

And gwt

Java failed to be what JavaScript became for a number of reasons, but I think the primary was the fact that it never integrated with HTML as cleanly as JS.

It could have been JS, but it was strangled to death by Sun (on the client).

Java also has the problem of long startup times while the JIT is doing its thing. Javascript has always just started executing right away. Waiting a minute or two for a Java loading bar wasn't fun.

JavaScript hasn't always worked that way. My guess is that if Java had become the tool for this, then it's startup times would have been fixed. Pure speculation of course.

If Sun had not killed Hotjava and continued to develop and market it, Java instead of JS might have been the frontend web programming language today. There were millions of Java applets written in a very short time and a Java browser would have been a first class citizen for hosting those apps.

Is TypeScript as annoying a language to code in as Javascript? Or is it comparable to other modern languages like Swift and Go? If it is, I'd say that pain of dealing with Javascript (for developer productivity and happiness) is already taken care of.

But webassembly will allow for typescript or you language of choice, c/c++ and rust first, and as the OP suggests others too.

The question was whether the concern of JS being frustrating is already solved by TypeScript, in which case WebAssembly is less important than it would be otherwise.

(Which isn't to say that there aren't other questions like efficiency and already-existing codebases written in other languages.)

Typescript is a type safe language that "compiles" into javascript. The Microsoft implementation compiles on save, so you work in your file.ts and a program running somewhere fires when the file is saved and converts it to file.js which you would distribute.

I haven't used it yet, but the demo from Anders looked good. It's an attempt to fix the "loosey goosey" nature of javascript. I would be great if browsers supported it as a built in language.

https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Anders-Hejlsberg-Introducing...

If you watch the video, you'll notice the argument notation is name: type rather than type name. I think Anders is reminiscing about his Delphi days.

> If you watch the video, you'll notice the argument notation is name: type rather than type name. I think Anders is reminiscing about his Delphi days.

ActionScript and the proposed ECMAScript 4 also use the name:type notation, so there is definitely some prior art in the web sphere

Thats not really what he asked though. If in the end a developer can work 98% in TS, do they really care if it runs as JS or something else if it solves their problems with the language ? I have heard from people that love TS, but surprisingly many that also prefer pure ES6 JS.

The only concerns I would have is I believe you have to debug the javascript rather than the typescript.

You can make the sourcemaps refer to the TypeScript code. I set breakpoints in TypeScript files and step through it all the time.

You should think of typescript as javascript+ more than a different language. It looks more like what javascript would look like in 2-3 version if the governing body thought static types were important to add.

That doesn't answer my question of whether TypeScript solves the concern of JS being frustrating to work in.

TypeScript is a joy to program in. I was on a project where we had the opportunity to turn on all the strict checks (no use of any, no implicit nulls, etc.), and it was super enjoyable and efficient to program in.

You have algebraic types (well, 99%), union types, and concise ways of expressing tree types.

I would imagine it is more pleasant than Swift or Go, though I haven't used either of those very much.

Jup, I think pretty much the same.

JavaScript is freaking everywhere.

Your DMS? Chances are it understands JavaScript.

Your scanning software? Understands JavaScript.

Your security gateway? JavaScript.

You API management software? Also JavaScript.

And a ton more. JavaScript is here to stay.

> If wasm doesn't overtake JS, something else that offers native bindings to other languages will eventually

When I read this I realised that WASM might just pave the way for something more fundamental: browser runtime stdlib.

One of the big issues, even highlighted in this very thread, is that people are wary of forcing 10MB+ blob downloads on their users. What would the effect be if browser provided a proper stdlib?

What was the last time you wrote something that was 10MB after compiled to native code when optimizing for space?

Linux + BusyBox is less than 2MB (I've fitted it in floppies not too long ago) if you don't include the drivers for everything. I've created a 10MB binary set that implements an entire email server, with everything statically linked, and in Haskell (that leads to inherently big binaries).

Yes, I still remember the days when we could have core Linux experience on one 1.44MB floppy disk. This keeps reminding me how bloated most modern software are.

no, WASM will not replace JS unless somehow, overnight, the idea of downloading 30mb of compiled runtime libraries to read an inaccessible-to-screenreaders news article becomes appealing.

but i wouldn't hold my breath for 1990's style java applet loading throbbers to come back into fashion. there's a reason that stuff got outcompeted by the supposedly "inferior" javascript.

what wasm competes with is flash games, insecure java applets, and npapi and nativeclient in general.

It got outcompeted by Flash, JavaScript had zero to do with it.

Had Apple not forbidden Flash on iOS, there would be no JavaScript superiority to talk about.

I invite you to try your favourite flash website in Puffin browser to see how "great" an experience flash on an iphone is.

Surely not worse than what JavaScript is.

Thankfully on Android and WP devices I was able to take the battery out, when the web site developer got too creative for the device's CPU/GPU.

Well, 5G is not that far. Remember when SPA was considered too "fat"? Now most of the web apps are SPA with few MBs to download.

SPAs are still considered too fat. how do you miss the nearly daily "web bloat crisis" stories on HN?

You're probably access web sites sitting at home or office, where you have decent 10+ Mbps channel. All this changes when you travel and you use either slow public WiFi or phone tethering. Yes, there's 4G, but in most places in most countries 4G coverage is very poor: it's only in the most populated areas.

I travel between countries and of course I hate staying in huge cities because they're expensive and noisy. But when you move to smaller towns, there're usually limited options for connecting to the Internet.

Last year in India I spent 2.5 hours incessantly trying to open my bank website to make an urgent payment. All these huge React/Redux bundles were loading for ages, and they aren't cached and there's no support for resuming download after it dies because of some timeout or because you were looking at the spinner for 30 minutes and decided to click reload button.

And even when these huge SPA load, they're totally broken on slow connections. People become lazy and they don't handle timeouts and responses coming in weird order because of the slow channel. Even if you manage to open SPA on slow connection, it's a pain to use, almost impossible with all these XMLHttpRequests on every click transferring megabytes of data after every click or typing any letter. :(

>>10+ Mbps channel

that's peasant level net :P. 100 or bust {literally what I have home and better at work). seriously though, indeed the web is overbloated and I don't think there is coming back

Well, I'm talking about "state of the art" apps. You can always fallback to server-side rendering/pure html if the connection is too slow and you can't afford the boostrap/init download. Depending on your use case SPA may actually be an improvement as the static resources can be cached. WASM is supposed to compete with native apps. Why don't you complain about MBs to download on native apps?

In all fairness, javascript should have never even been required to display a news article. Javascript makes up for a lot of the shortcomings of HTML.

JS isn't required to display a news article, and never has been. You can make a fast, beautiful and modern news site using only HTML and CSS, without a byte of JS.

Take a look at the source for any molasses-slow news site. The only site-specific JS will be jQuery, and a few basic event handlers to do things like show and hide elements, which could have been done with CSS.

99.9% of the JS will be advertising, analytics, and tracking. People understand that these sites are tracking them, but I think most people have not idea just how much tracking is going on. Major news sites have hundreds of tracking libraries loaded per-page. That is the only reason they are slow.

And adaptive design, auto-complete, client side validation of forms, etc. But all of which should be handled by a better CSS/HTML

Reply on news.ycombinator.com