Video games are not high art. They are, potentially, the HIGHEST form of art.
Is a novel "high art"? Is a painting "high art"? A picture is worth a thousand words, a movie contains one hundred thousand pictures, and a video game can generate a million possible animated sequences. You do the math.
Not just first class functions, but first class functions within a mainstream language that can be dynamically and retroactively assigned as methods to all instances of a "class" as easily as:
var a = new Array(1, 2, 3);
Array.prototype.ForEach = function(f) { for (var i = 0; i < this.length; i++) f(this[i]); };
Nothing built on Javascript will ever achieve the security, cross-platform reliability, and programmatic friendliness that Web 2.0 needs.
Security - Javascript is NOT designed to secure a web app, security needs to happen on the server side, out of necessity!
Cross-platform - I would argue that Javascript / ECMAScript, having been standardized and distributed with all major browsers for years, is arguably the MOST supported cross-platform programming language in the world. If a computer has a browser made in the last 5 years, it supports standardized ECMAScript. And what PC doesn't have a browser?
The only incompatibilities I run into on a frequent basis are getting my scripts to create results that look the same across all browsers, and that's not Javascript's fault, it's CSS and browser support of CSS! If you have problems with the [i]functionality[/i] of Javascript, then you're probably not writing according to the well established standards, or worse yet, throwing together snippets of Javascript from all over the web like so many amatuers that give the language a bad rep.
Proprietary solutions and vendor lock-in are also dead ends
So you would use Sun's solution, rather than the well established internationally standardized ECMAScript?
Programmatic friendlyness - Joel says it all here
Personally, I've programmed in dozens of languages, and few are as flexible and enjoyable as Javascript
Javascript used to have the same status that Java applets and Flash still do, used predominantly for play things, small self-contained segments of the browser where you want to do something different. Javascript has risen above that. The world is finally realizing Javascript can be an integral part of an entire website, and that the website as a whole can be enhanced by Javascript and it's tight integration with other web standards.
This article sounds like an attempt to rehype Java applets, which frankly, have not seen the advancement and acceptance that Javascript has over the years.
Slashdot Mirror
Video games are not high art. They are, potentially, the HIGHEST form of art.
Is a novel "high art"? Is a painting "high art"? A picture is worth a thousand words, a movie contains one hundred thousand pictures, and a video game can generate a million possible animated sequences. You do the math.
My point isn't that you have to define new methods
My point is that you can dynamically add new methods to core classes
Javascript 1.6 has built-in Array.forEach
This is simpler Javascript code, but doesn't demonstrate the features I was trying to demonstrate
Not just first class functions, but first class functions within a mainstream language that can be dynamically and retroactively assigned as methods to all instances of a "class" as easily as:
Comon, your inner nerd has GOT to be squee'ing
Security - Javascript is NOT designed to secure a web app, security needs to happen on the server side, out of necessity!
Cross-platform - I would argue that Javascript / ECMAScript, having been standardized and distributed with all major browsers for years, is arguably the MOST supported cross-platform programming language in the world. If a computer has a browser made in the last 5 years, it supports standardized ECMAScript. And what PC doesn't have a browser?
The only incompatibilities I run into on a frequent basis are getting my scripts to create results that look the same across all browsers, and that's not Javascript's fault, it's CSS and browser support of CSS! If you have problems with the [i]functionality[/i] of Javascript, then you're probably not writing according to the well established standards, or worse yet, throwing together snippets of Javascript from all over the web like so many amatuers that give the language a bad rep.
So you would use Sun's solution, rather than the well established internationally standardized ECMAScript?
Programmatic friendlyness - Joel says it all here Personally, I've programmed in dozens of languages, and few are as flexible and enjoyable as Javascript
Javascript used to have the same status that Java applets and Flash still do, used predominantly for play things, small self-contained segments of the browser where you want to do something different. Javascript has risen above that. The world is finally realizing Javascript can be an integral part of an entire website, and that the website as a whole can be enhanced by Javascript and it's tight integration with other web standards.
This article sounds like an attempt to rehype Java applets, which frankly, have not seen the advancement and acceptance that Javascript has over the years.