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Comment by nine_k | Hacker News Reader

JavaScript was also famously built in 10 days.

I'd say that internally git is more consistent %)

JS on the list is quite interesting, since it being rushed and a prototype ending up getting shipped often gets cited as an explanation for why JS has issues. Given how widespread it is, this is a project I wish had gotten a lot more time. An argument could be made that it succeeded, so it must be good, but given it's the only built-in, full language in the browser just says that it was good enough and now we are kinda stuck with it.

Indeed, there was no choice.

Good thing we ended up with a small language that has easy objects, first-class functions, and compact syntax. We could have got something like ABAP were we really unlucky.

As much as I couldn't live without complaining about Javascript's shortcomings, I have to agree with this. At the time, many of the features you mention were hardly necessary - no one was considering using it to build giant web apps, let alone servers! The fact that people decided they could do those things and the language was sufficiently flexible to grow along those lines would probably be very surprising to the original developer. For having such a chaotic evolution, it's becoming a much better language than anyone would have a right to expect.

Kind of like English, which is also a terrible choice for a global language, it's shown a fairly powerful ability to incorporate new idioms.

I don't believe this. Someone who knows how to design and implement a language with real closures, prototype-based inheritance, a garbage collector, etc. also knows the value and power of those things, used them before extensively and knows how far they can go. Also, the shortcomings that everybody loves to talk about are mostly misunderstood features (yes, even == which everybody loves to hate), and mostly by programmers who wouldn't even know where to start designing a language.

True, as much as JS sucks, some of its fundamentals are really good

Deity helps us if it was really Javascript with complete disregard for first order functions and verbosity through the roof

> JavaScript was also famously built in 10 days

And boy does it show!

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