[Web-SIG] JavaScript libraries

[Steve Holden]

Mike Orr wrote:
> Carlos Ribeiro wrote:
> 
> 
>>Hi guys,
>>
>>
>>Javascript seems to be everyone's little dirty secret. Everyone uses,
>>most people don't like it. Some (like me) dislike it for no other
>>reason than being another language that I have to use. Some others
>>dislike it for being named Javasomething (which is indeed something
>>very strange). 
>>
> 
> 
> It appeared during Java's intial wave of hype.  Netscape named it that 
> to ensure rapid acceptance of the language.  In other words, by latching 
> onto Java's coattails it avoided the need to prove itself on its own.
> 
Except that it didn't, of course. My own belief is that Javascript, like 
Perl, has suffered from the web-s 1990's "programming with a trowel" 
metaphor, because a bunch of clueless dweebs dsicovered they could often 
get 85% of a web job done by lifting chunks of code from the Internet 
and dropping them into web pages.

The fact that they then often had no clue how to provide the other 15% 
of the required fuctionality led to many oddities and much 
"trial-and-error" programming that was inevitably a nightmare to maintain.

There used to be a terrific Javascript debugging environment in Mozilla, 
but since I moved to Firefox I don't see the same thing (as I haven't 
recently been doing much JS). It didn't help with the cross-browser 
issues, though, and those could be a nightmare. When two DOMs colide the 
victim is surely the lowly Java script programmer.

The language itself is remarkably clean when you look at it in the abstract.

done-my-own-ton-of-javascript-ly y'rs  - steve
-- 
Steve Holden        +1 703 861 4237  +1 800 494 3119
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