Every time these guys brag about how quickly they put together the first version I just want to say to them, "yeah, we can all tell. And every day we suffer for it."
In this talk, I couldn't decide whether his saying JS was written in ten days was a rueful admission that it's only natural for it to be a huge pile of shit, or some self-aggrandizement based on how quickly he managed to write it. I always found JS rather tasteless, so, naturally predisposed to think somewhat uncharitably of its author, I'm going to assume it's self-aggrandizement. This might be a bit rude of me, but if it's OK to rush out JS then slowly make it ever so slightly better over the next 20 years, then I think it's OK for me to form my opinions in the same manner ;)
JS happened, I made it in ten days because it wouldn't have happened otherwise. Had I thought it through, I might have insisted on more time -- but then: VBScript.
We don't get to call these shots. Taste and morality have little to do with their hitting targets (whether the ones we aimed at, or others). All the good stuff in JS came from giants on whose shoulders or heads I stood.
I'm not a nihilist or materialist, but I have to laugh after 20 years. JS was not planned out this far in advance!
Anyhoo, my sense of self does not depend on ten days in May 1995. My work on the Web, not just JS but especially on Mozilla, Firefox, and HTML5, doesn't need aggrandizement. My best work has yet to be seen. I'm not doing these talks to boast. Peace.
I'm happy to retract my unkind supposition, especially after a gracious reply like that.
He is now spending a huge amount of time trying to fix his mistakes, so perhaps he suffers more than most...
Uhhh what? This is a pretty weird thing to say, also kinda messed up to reference something as a "teenage suicide"
You got it. ES6, ES7 are making JS look better and better.
While javascript has obvious flaws, nobody would ever agree on what a sane language would be.
I would also say that, personally, I think that how the DOM is implemented is itself the biggest pain point of web development, not really javascript.
Seriously, there have been a large number of compatible ECMAScript implementations, which still astounds me because that is no easy feat.
My biggest gripe would actually be CSS. I mean, wtf.
And I obviously referred to JS just passing its teenage years, which I would prefer it didn't manage to. I am one of those crazies that are implementing a desktop-like functionality app for creatives in a browser, created a car racing game in pure JS without a single 3rd party library, did computer vision in a browser via webcam etc. and every time I have to use JS/DOM/CSS it just makes me feel I need to go to Queenstown and jump off the Kawarau bridge...
Not to mention that as a Mozilla fanboy I even use bleeding edge Firefox OS on my primary business phone.