I don't hate Javascript, but I hate that I've have spent untold hours of my life on bugs that could instead have been immediately flagged...

I don't hate Javascript, but I hate that I've have spent untold hours of my life on bugs that could instead have been immediately flagged by a static analyser, or been a runtime error at the source of the problem, instead of a weird bug in a totally different part of the program. Javascript has a number of issues that make static analysis hard. It also has implicit conversions and other oddities which mean that code often keeps on trucking after a programmer error, rather than failing where the initial problem was. These problems were solved in other languages decades ago - which is why many developers "hate" switching to Javascript. It's coding on a tight-rope without a safety net. The meme: "You're just a hater, because you don't know how to use it", is a joke. Javascript has issues, hopefully they can be fixed, but fixing them without breaking compatibility is difficult. Being honest about Javascript's flaws doesn't make you a "hater". For the record my first JS project was Netscape 2 compatible. So I'm pretty sure I know how to use it.

Posted by xxgreg on Mar 21, 2015, 10:00 PM

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• ux (Software)

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