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Should JavaScript Get More Respect?
An anonymous reader points out an article in IBM's Crossing Borders series about the language features of JavaScript, surely the Rodney Dangerfield of scripting languages. But with increasing use in such technologies as Ajax, Apache Cocoon, ActionScript, and Rhino, some industry leaders are taking a fresh look at the language. From the article: "Nearly every Web developer has cursed JavaScript at one time or another. Until recently, many developers had all but written off JavaScript as a necessary evil at best or a toy at worst... But JavaScript is becoming increasingly important, and it remains the most broadly available scripting language for Web development."
According to the article
"My friend and colleague Stuart Halloway, one of the foremost experts on Ajax, begins a JavaScript class with a provocative statement: "By 2011, we will recognize JavaScript as a language with a better set of features for developing modern applications." He then says that JavaScript programs are often 10 times as dense as similar Java programs and goes on to show the language features that make it so."
The author seems to equate dense with good, not an association I make
And yet you don't seem to know the difference between an embedded Java applet and integrated JavaScript code.
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JavaScript/ECMAScript really is an interesting language; the way objects work takes some getting used to, but it's powerful, and definitely definitely not a toy language. It's when you bring the HTML DOM and browser inconsistencies into the equation that things start to get painful.
Developing interactive content for the web is a lot like building a house out of crap you find at the junk yard. None of the materials are great, you'll be forced to use a lot of jankie things you'd rather not use, and you may need to substitute sheet-rock for side panels from an '82 Corolla.
In the case of anything involved in web development, I use tools because they're the best thing for the job. Unfortunately, "best" for web dev tools usually means "only" or "no one will be able to view your page if you develop with something else."
Java Script / J Script is the devil. Development is a sloppy crap shoot, but we use it because it's there. It's now being used for ridiculous things that it was never really designed for.
On one hand, web 2.0 AJAX sites are cool, on the other hand, AJAX makes me throw-up a little bit in my mouth every time I type it's name.
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I have a hard time understanding why I hear so many people complaining about JS as a language. I think a lot of Java programmers don't like it because it's not Java (not strongly typed, ...), and a lot of C++ programmers don't like it because it's not C++.
The truth is that you can do some pretty amazing stuff with JavaScript. My favorite demo is here. It's a web-based calculator, and if your browser has MathML set up correctly, it'll display your equation on the fly, as you type it, in standard math notation. For instance, if you type 1/(2+pi), it displays a fraction bar, with 1 on top, and 2+pi on the bottom (pi rendered as a Greek letter). (I think recent versions of Firefox have MathML and its fonts set up correctly by default, but if not, you can download the necessary fonts (instructions). For IE, you need to install MathPlayer.) What I think this calculator app demonstrates pretty dramatically is how powerful a development platform the web browser can be, without messing with the ugliness of AJAX at all. WYSIWYG mathematics typesetting is the kind of application that people used to pay $100 for ca. 1995, and now it's not only free, it's open-source, and it's an app that you can just run in your browser, without having to install anything.
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