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Comment by thw_9a83c | Hacker News Reader

The name "JavaScript" was silly to begin with, just a way to make the buzzword "Java" more popular. Let's call it WebScript and move on.

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Aparently it is fine if you take an existing, trademarked language name and just add `Script` to the end of it.

Obviously we should just call it JavaScriptScript.

It does seem that rebranding would just fix the problem. I don’t really understand why the name is worth fighting over.

Didn’t we try that experiment already with ECMAScript? Have you met anyone using it? Me neither.

I can’t wait for the “well actually” comments.

I actually still thought that was the official name, but I never call it that.

But really, what does it matter? Is Oracle suing people over the term JavaScript? Even if so, can’t they just use the correct term and the rest of us can call it JavaScript?

I guess I just really don’t understand why this is a good use of my donations rather than, say, feeding the hungry, and I don’t mean that to disparage any tech related not for profits or issues.

I'm not even sure how to correctly say ECMAScript out loud.

ee-see-ehm-ay-skript? It's ECK-mah-script.

Why not “JS”? Then we can all take sides in a religious war on whether it’s pronounced jay-ess, jayce, juss, or jess?

It’s pronounced gay-ess. Just like GIF.

Sorry, this seriously is an honest question: Is there a typo in your post? Otherwise I must come to the conclusion that you suggest pronouncing JS as 'jiss'.

Can't we all get along? "jizz" and "gay-ass" are both perfectly good.

JS would be hard to trademark now because there’s so many other services using JS as part of their trademark. There’s also already quite a few companies who’ve already registered JS as a trademark.

You also couldn’t call it Jscript because Microsoft owns the trademark there.

EMCAScript is the most practical from a legal standpoint, but that name sucks badly.

Yeah, but that's what is needed.

An un-trademark-eable term.

What you need is the opposite: a trademarked name but one where a community-managed nonprofit foundation owns.

That’s how other languages (eg Perl and Python) manage their assets. And the ecosystem is better for it.

>Perl

>Python

>And the ecosystem is better for it.

AHAHAHAHAHH

I take it form your reply that you either misunderstood my comment or you think the constant threat of litigation from Oracle is a good thing.

Either way, you come off as incredibly naïve.

Sure, let me just rename all of my file extensions and parsers to .ws and then handle the collisions with websockets paths and then revert it all back to how it was before I touched anything

Sounds really like a development environment problem, I mean if you can't handle that your language suddenly changes it's name in a not backward compatible fashion, how do you ever stand a chance to handle leap seconds correctly?

Is this sarcastic? Hard to tell.

Most code doesn't need to handle leap seconds at all.

So you think that Oracle must receive $200k, and that's the only way you can keep the legacy `.js` extension for your files.

The money isn't going to Oracle. It will be going to Deno's lawyers and, to a smaller extent, the US government.

"The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language." - Donald Knuth

Javascript was never a good name and if they weren't the defacto option to program the web, they would have never made it. I don't know why deno is so eager to get hold of the JS trademark when they have the perfect unencumbered name right there: denolang.

They don’t want to get hold of the trademark, they want to cancel it altogether. IMO it’s an important distinction

Kinda the other way around right? Java was a popular language at the time so Brendan Eich picked that as part of the name to make his new language more popular.

Pretty sure Brendan Eich had nothing to do with the name JavaScript. That was a name cooked up by the marketing department.

That is correct: in Brendan's own words: https://youtu.be/XOmhtfTrRxc?si=5J7LrNIaNo-_GNf7&t=99 (starts at 1:39)

Maybe. However, he wouldn't have been allowed to choose the name "JavaScript" if Netscape and Sun hadn't been in a business partnership. So my point is still valid. It was just a random ride on the Java wave.

We can also call it ECMAScript. I always try to refer to it as ES instead of JS in professional coding context.

Apparently people don't like the name "ECMA" because it's too close to "Eczema" which is a nasty dry/itchy skin problem. And I agree, because I have it too.

Ironically EczemaScript is still a better name than ECMAScript.

It looks too much like "Acme" so it gets confused as a joke about cartoons. It looks too much like "acne", that is a too common skin problem, and it looks too much like "eczema" that is a rarer nasty-looking skin problem.

Whoever created that name should get a prize.

Anyway, the community not adopting that brand doesn't mean one can't rebrand JS.

AcmeScript!

Every line of code has a chance to explode in your face.

...

Wait that's just normal JavaScript-

> And I agree, because I have it too.

Eczema or ECMaScript?

If there's a name even stupider than JavaScript it's ECMAScript.

I would like to be able to pronounce the name in a sensible quick fashion based on how it is written. ;)

For "WebScript" that works. Even just "JS" works. For "ECMAScript" not so much.

ES would be fine. I guess it would conflict with with Spanish domains. But I'm sure we can just continue using .js in the files names... What is the Oracle gonna do? Sue every body who uses .js in the filename?

Why not HPVscript?

CancerScript perhaps?

How about EichScript, or ES for short :-D

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