Missing the point
Jeff Atwood is missing the point when he talks about JavaScript performance. He’s talking about how “JavaScript is the Lingua Franca of the web”, whether “it [is] possible for browsers to run JavaScript significantly faster than they do today” and so on. Apparently, he doesn’t read Steve Yegge or reddit, since otherwise he would have read about JavaScript moving into the desktop domain:
As it happens, though, I’ve settled on Rhino. I’ll be working with the Rhino dev team to help bring it up to spec with EcmaScript Edition 4. I believe that ES4 brings JavaScript to rough parity with Ruby and Python in terms of (a) expressiveness and (b) the ability to structure and manage larger code bases. Anything it lacks in sugar, it more than makes up for with its optional type annotations. And I think JavaScript (especially on ES4 steroids) is an easier sell than Ruby or Python to people who like curly braces, which is anyone currently using C++, Java, C#, JavaScript or Perl.
Steve Yegge is excellent in talking about one thing and nailing several others on the way. He starts talking about his home-grown open-source game, moves over ranting about Java programmers onto some Gang-of-Four ranting and finally tells the public about his decision to rewrite his whole Java game in ECMAScript4. Actually, he’s talking only about his personal experiences, but these have a gigantic impact on the people. “A growing sense of doom” is a pretty good summary of the feeling. And while Reginald is particularly baffled about Java and millions of LOC, everybody is free to learn from Steve just about anything he mentions.
I wasn’t as amazed about Java, I rather had a lesson about JavaScript becoming mainstream. Real mainstream, a general-purpose language like Python or Ruby. Interpreters, JITs and compilers for ES4 are being developed, they are getting faster and it’s just a matter of time when JavaScript in browsers becomes a simple plugin, just like Java is now. JavaScript is the heart of Web2.0 now, but it’s extending to outer domains rapidly. Everyone who is not aware of this might be left far behind.
By the way, it feels good to be a part of a minority.
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