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2017: The Year in Programming Languages (infoworld.com)
InfoWorld writes that 2017 "presented a mixed bag of improvements to both long-established and newer programming languages." An anonymous reader quotes their report:
Developers followed a soap opera over Java, with major disagreements over a modularization plan for standard Java and, in a surprising twist, Oracle washing its hands of the Java EE enterprise variant. Microsoft's TypeScript, meanwhile, has increased in popularity by making life easier for developers looking for an alternative to JavaScript. Microsoft also launched Q#, a language for quantum computing...
In web development, developers received a lot of help building with JavaScript itself or with JavaScript alternatives. Among the tools released in 2017 were: Google's Angular 5 JavaScript framework, released in November, featuring a build optimizer and supports progressive web apps and use of Material Design components... And React, the JavaScript UI library from Facebook, went to Version 16 in September, featuring a rewriting of the React core to boost responsiveness for complex applications...
TypeScript was not the only JavaScript alternative making waves this year. For web developers who would rather use Google's Go (Golang) language instead of JavaScript, the beta Joy compiler introduced in December promises to allow cross-compilation. Another language that offers compilation to JavaScript -- although it began on the JVM -- is Kotlin, which has experienced rising fortunes this year. It was boosted considerably by Google endorsing it in May for building Android applications, which has been chiefly the domain of Java...
2017 also saw the release of the long-awaited C++ 17.
Another 2017 memory: Eric Raymond admitting that he hates C++, and predicting that Go (but not Rust) will eventually replace C -- if not a new language like Cx.
In web development, developers received a lot of help building with JavaScript itself or with JavaScript alternatives. Among the tools released in 2017 were: Google's Angular 5 JavaScript framework, released in November, featuring a build optimizer and supports progressive web apps and use of Material Design components... And React, the JavaScript UI library from Facebook, went to Version 16 in September, featuring a rewriting of the React core to boost responsiveness for complex applications...
TypeScript was not the only JavaScript alternative making waves this year. For web developers who would rather use Google's Go (Golang) language instead of JavaScript, the beta Joy compiler introduced in December promises to allow cross-compilation. Another language that offers compilation to JavaScript -- although it began on the JVM -- is Kotlin, which has experienced rising fortunes this year. It was boosted considerably by Google endorsing it in May for building Android applications, which has been chiefly the domain of Java...
2017 also saw the release of the long-awaited C++ 17.
Another 2017 memory: Eric Raymond admitting that he hates C++, and predicting that Go (but not Rust) will eventually replace C -- if not a new language like Cx.
Not only C++. With WebAssembly one can have a python, swift or go interpreter in the browser. WebAssembly will probably start reducing market share for Javascript which to me is a good thing as I've wasted uncountable hours nitpicking small syntax javascript errors that were causing problems.
I still think C++ has lots of flaws that are totally unnecessary. For example designers insist on not making syntatical breaking changes in C++ which to me is senseless. They could come up with a common bytecode as swift has already done. Then you can just simplify C++ making breaking changes as there will be still binary compatiblity (which at the end of the day is what one wants). That would lead to huge amount of reduction of unnecessary complexity in C++, cleaner code, remove unnecessary undefined behaviour, faster compile times... That would make C++ developers way happier and probably increase its usage with has been stagnant for a long time already.
Clearly you haven't been reading minified JavaScript recently. JavaScript hasn't been readable for years, and the world didn't end.
I'd love to hear how you "know it" today, because the JavaScript served by most websites might as well have been a big binary blob.
Downthread you mention:
Surely that is a completely separate concern? Non-advanced users have never been able to read JavaScript. And when WebAssembly becomes more popular, the non-advanced users won't be able to read that, too. So from their perspective nothing changes.