JavaScript is Terribad

Remember when JavaScript was simple? When we served down HTML from the server then displayed all that lovely markup to a user and then made it dance with eloquently written lines of JavaScript?

Yea…. Me either.

JavaScript is shit - it’s always been shit. To understand why it is shit you must first learn it’s history.

Here is a brief summary:

• Brendan Eich, a god amongst morals, was hired at Netscape.
• He proceeded to implement Scheme in the browser.
• Sun partnered with Netscape.
• Management decided “We need Java in the browser.”
• Management wanted a prototype “Now.”
• 10 days later, JavaScript (then LiveScript) was born.

Maybe my hatred stems from the thought that, had management been left out of the decision, I could have been writing Scheme in the browser. I’m not sure. But what I do know is that the JavaScript community has gone pants-on-head crazy with all its libraries, build tools, and frameworks. What we are left with in the wake of management’s and unshakeable love of Java is a language that:

1. Won’t run outside the browser.
2. Has almost no standard Library.
3. Is slower than Pharaoh’s army and getting slower

##Angular vs Ember vs React vs …

How is it that this happens so often in the JavaScript world? There are far more framework than there should be.

• Ember.js
• Angular.js
• Backbone.js
• Bootstrap.js
• React.js
• SproutCore
• Meteor

That is just getting started. How is anyone supposed to choose the proper framework for their tool? Perhaps this is why people are so fervently passionate about their framework of choice being the ONLY framework you should use. Once you pick a framework it takes weeks of research to even select with framework you will learn next and by time you pick one a new framework will pop out of the woodwork.

##Package Managers

• NPM
• Bower
• Jam
• Ender
• Volo

Where does the list end? At least the majority of the JavaScript community has agreed that npm is good but when will people stop trying to roll their own package management solution? Half of these things need to be put on a boat and sent out to sea.

##Transpiled Languages

“JavaScript is the byte-code of the internet” is something I have been hearing since 2013. Maybe it is because we all truly do hate JavaScript or maybe it is because the simple task of defining a class with a few methods in pure JS looks something like this.

function Dog(name){
   this.name = name;
}

Dog.prototype.speak = function(){
    alert(this.name + " barks");
};

Dog.prototype.walk = function(){
    alert(this.name + " walks across the room");
};

Dog.prototype.walk = function(){
    alert(this.name + " goes to sleep");
};

Don’t even get me started on what inheritance looks like. Why are we trying to do OO in JavaScript anyway?

But, I don’t think that the insane prototypal inheritance interface that JS has is the reason that things like Coffeescript, ECMASCRIPT 2016, and ClojureScript exist. I think it is because the JavaScript Standard Library is the weakest of any standard lib out there. Trying to write a pure JavaScript application is like trying to dig yourself to the center of the planet with a spoon.

##When will I get a true scripting language in the browser.

One day I hope I live to see this.

<script type='python'>
...
</script>

Or

<script type='ruby'>
...
</script>

I don’t know how, and I don’t know when but I do know that the browser needs a proper scripting language. Maybe the ASM.js team will pull this off. I have high hopes for Emscripten and what it could do to the frontend development world. In case you have not heard, Emscripten is an LLVM to ASM.js compiler that can allow any C based language to be run natively in the browser.

##In Conclusion

There is no way on gods earth that JavaScript can be improved on. You would need to pull together a consortium of all the browser development teams (and their bosses). To even begin to start to have this conversation. Perhaps this has already been done but I cannot image that it would prove to be very production. Again, I think that projects like Emscripten are giving us somewhat of a brighter future for frontend development that could result in more readable, maintainable, and faster code that does not pull in 9000 modules that you have never heard of before. Long story short, I wish I had to option to leave the JavaScript ecosystem in order to do frontend development.