Comment by PedroBatista | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PedroBatista | Hacker News Reader

Unpopular opinion that might be due to being an old curmudgeon by tech standards:

TypeScript, the ES's and TC39s are a mistake since the beginning and ruined JavaScript. The root cause of all this is "JavaScript sucks and we want to build big complicated apps with it" and by "we" I mean big software teams working at big tech companies earning a small fortune every year.

If I have to write TypeScript, then I might just write Java or even C#, since it's a lousy copy of those languages. ( and yes, I say that very loosely ).

The modern ES[insert number] classes are weak and out of place and the module system is a complete joke and disaster. Truly! those people were either on drugs or are playing a joke on the "design by committee" phenomenon.

Yes, Javascript is not a great language, but it won not just because of distribution but also because it as made to be simple to pick up. Have any of these people watched a beginner and not-so beginner try to pick up "modern JavaScript" or TypeScript? Even Java looks like Basic in comparison!.

Thank God TypeScript and ES6 won over Dash/Dart from Google, but god damn it what an hollow victory.

As for myself, this old curmudgeon, I just stopped caring and ignored all of this frontend cesspool. Waiting/hoping all of this rots away.

> If I have to write TypeScript, then I might just write Java or even C#

You might just write it in an object-oriented way... but OOP sucks.

> Have any of these people watched a beginner and not-so beginner try to pick up "modern JavaScript" or TypeScript?

What are you talking about?

Open notepad or notepad++, add a library, write Typescript, save and run it in the browser. Go!

Clone an example project -> npm start. I consider this point done then.

Don't know how beginners would feel about writing gradle tasks though. Don't know if they can cross-compile Java to the browser as well.

Example project? what example project? np what? and then what?

I all this complication to show some clicky things on a web browser while inputting some data?

Why does your recommendation starts with "just download some other dudes code" to START a project?

These questions are obviously a means to make a point.

You can cross-compile Java and I'm not even defending Java, I used it as an example if we are going to suffer with this Rube Goldberg machine of mediocrity, then we might as well just program in Java, since it has the better tech and their package/import stuff is light years better than any TS or ES script and btw, it looks pretty much just like Java/C# now.

The JS people in charge completely lost the plot and given the nature of the industry, many software devs just started their careers with ES5/6/Typescript and don't even realize how ridiculous this whole thing is.

The problem was the misplaced "need" to make "Javascript" a "serious", best-of-breed ( ugh.. ) language to make big complicated web-apps. Given the premise and the context, of course we end with something like Typescript, which is as boring and mind numbing as Java.

How ironic it is to see the "hip" cool people at the time ending up with a mediocre copycat version of the Java world.. :)

> Example project? what example project? np what? and then what?

What do you want to do now? I thought setting up projects for beginners is too complicated. Now you expect them to bootstrap production environments. Which one is it?

> I all this complication to show some clicky things on a web browser while inputting some data?

You sound like a person who has no clue about frontend development. I know, because I used to speak the same way before going full-stack. It's not bad to not understand things, but I think it's bad to not understand things and have loud opinions about it.

If you seriously see no reason in using frontend technologies, you are free to pick whatever you like best. But then you act like you are smarter than a whole industry - which I doubt.

> just download some other dudes code

How is that different from using a library?

> package/import stuff is light years better than any TS or ES script

So your critizing the TS module system? I don't know. I don't have issues with that.

It's really hard to follow you as you are constantly topic-hopping. Would really help if you named some examples of why TS is so bad.

I can only tell you from my experience that having one language for frontend and backend reduces the amount of context switches as a dev and leads to a faster feedback cycle. Eventually, adding business value becomes easier and that is what it's all about. Not some weird culture wars about languages.

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