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Comment by u124556 | Hacker News Reader

Javascript is being replaced by newer (hopefully better) Javascript. That's they only thing browser vendors can get in agreement.

There's plenty of other javascript compilers for plenty of languages.

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I really wish there way a way of coding for the web that didn't require [backend language] + [front end language] + Javascript (might be the same as previous two) + HTML + CSS. If I want to write a website in Python, I still need to know Javascript, HTML, and CSS, so why bother with Python?

Don't use Python then. Prefer a language that has compilers targeting Javascript instead. Candidates that I have tried: Clojure & Scala. And I'm sure there are others. People don't talk that much about it because Javascript being used as a compilation target is a fairly new trend.

There are some GWT-like things for Python, pyjs and pyjamas. Doesn't get you away from CSS though.

> If I want to write a website in Python, I still need to know Javascript, HTML, and CSS, so why bother with Python?

Because you don't want to write your backend in Javascript and you prefer a different language. You don't have to know well only one language in your lifetime.

> If I want to write a website in Python, I still need to know Javascript, HTML, and CSS, so why bother with Python?

Libraries. Backend code can be quite different than frontend depending on your requisites.

E.g., there's no SQLAlchemy for Node.

HTML and CSS are quite different things, you can't escape that.

Sorry, I should have mentioned the "why bother with python" was rhetorical. I know the answer, I was just expressing frustration at the barrier to entry that doesn't need to exist.

"If I want to write a website in Python, I still need to know Javascript, HTML, and CSS, so why bother with Python?"

Right tool for the right job. That's why I don't think you should use css on the server! Or haskell on the client's browser!

Can you elaborate on why Haskell is not appropriate for the browser? Just for clarification, it is a general purpose language whereas CSS is not.

No particular reason. It was the first example language that popped into my head when I was thinking of "what language do I think really doesn't belong in a client browser". i.e. my personal opinion.

I'm sure it's a perfectly valid option to put in the browser, though.

I agree with you that you should use the right tool for the job. No CSS on the server :) There are a couple of projects (ghcjs, fay, purescript, haste) that make it possible to write Haskell for the browser. After maintaining JS libraries with a team over the past three years I've come to wish for Haskell's type system and compiler. It would make my job much easier. :)

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