Is JavaScript the Future of Programming?

All linkbaity headlines posed as a question are answered should be answered with "no", but I'm going to make the "yes" argument.

Right now, Javascript is the most comprehensive, accessible, documented environment for someone who is, say, 12 years old. When I was that age, it was BASIC or Logo. Then it was Turbo Pascal / Turbo C. Next it was PHP. Right now, it's Javascript.

And someone can grow with that. Chrome and Firefox are on the verge of being (if not already) IDEs for Javascript. There's of course node.js. Anyone can go into the code from websites and pull it apart (see Hanselman's post [1]). Codecademy is based on Javascript, and so on.

That's my argument for "yes". Not because Javascript is at all good, but because it's the most ubiquitous and accessible language for the next generation. And on top of that, more energy is being poured into it than anything else.

[1] - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheInternetIsNotABlackBoxLookI...

As a JavaScript developer who loves JS, I really hope not!

Its a great and fun language but it has far too many flaws. Updates to the language specs aren't coming fast enough.

Are Linkbaitish Titles the Future of Journalism?

Despite the lack of love by many of those that consider themselves to be "true" or "hardcore" programmers or developers, JavaScript much like VB before it has a place and it does a good job at what it is designed for. JavaScript much like VB serves the purpose of gluing together apps that are close to the user and doing so rapidly. There is no denying that developing an app on a HTML/CSS/JavaScript front-end and a Node.js back end is fast probably one of the fastest stacks to develop in that I have seen in my career. Probably the only thing that was faster was back in the days of CGI/Perl but that is comparing apples to oranges as back in those days interactivity was minimal. It is almost as fast as building a traditional VB desktop app, which is pretty amazing given the infrastructure needed for web apps. There is definitely a place in the mainstream for JavaScript but it does not get all the credit, projects such as Node, Modernizr and Dojo have done just as much work to make JavaScript a rapid development choice as the core language guys have.

Javascript is certainly addictive and fun to program with. Obviously the driver is, that it is part of every browser, and now the server. While flawed, it is so very expressive as a language. I think now that we are seeing some serious architectural concepts implemented and documented in the various libraries, it is making development much easier and faster.

I recently discussed this with a colleague, and we agreed, that the ability to do JavaScript client and server (node) side has made it a no brainer, end to end javascript over RESTful services is the best way for "us" to go.

I like that in windows 8 you can reference class libraries written in c# directly in your is project also.

So I see a bright future for JavaScript :-)

I'll throw in with "Please no, never", but if we continue the expect trend of shift towards web apps over the next 5-10 years then obviously JS is going to become a defacto tool, unless something else takes off but I can only think of Dart which compiles to JS anyway unless it's that build of Chrome with the VM in.

So what's next, an attempt a making a wide reaching client side language to usurp JS, or more languages that just compile down to JS and we treat it much like assembler gets treated now?

Wow; node.js comes along, and its like there's a hole in collective memory. Both Netscape and Microsoft had javascript rocking serverside late nineties / early 2000's (the same time as VBScript and CGI). Also, other language interpreters ran code client-side (IE ran VBScript as I remember). It would be nice if history was as clearly delineated as stated, but it isn't. The jist of the argument is accurate tho; even people writing VBScript thought js was 'hacky' on the server :o)

God I hope not.

Maybe we need to think of 'JavaScript' as a term representing a set of uncompiled languages targeting the browser runtime environment. With that definition I would say, sure - 'JavaScript' has a very bright future.

No, it can't be the future because it's already the present. The future comes when something else replaces it.

JavaScript is useful for some things; it can be used for all things, but that doesn't mean it should be.

Whenever I see a headline such as "is x the future of z", the answer is almost always "not exclusively".

News titles exaggerate. They just mean that Javascript is growing in popularity.

Can every tech mag article that ends with a question mark be answered with 'No'?

Sure, why not. It's better C++ and STL.

No.

That a language is usable on the server and client is cause for it to be the "future of programming"? What an unbelievably outlandishly over simplification of everything that is part of this implication.