Javascript is a very poor analogy since it's been grandfathered into our workflow, and has coincidentally been shoehorned into being workable, at the very least.
In relation to the blog we're discussing, Javascript is an excellent example, since one of the blog's points is that we shouldn't allow Go to become yet another Javascript.
Your post (and in turn, my reply) had absolutely nothing to do with the article.
> I don't think a language's popularity has anything to do with it being a good, well-thought-out language. Just look at Javascript.
My point is that it's popular because we've been forced into using it, and the web is now much larger than it used to be. I'm explaining why it became popular, despite it's downfalls.
No other recent (past decade) poor language has come close to popular because we haven't had a similar issue arise in which we were grandfathered into.
Furthermore, there are plenty of less-than-stellar languages out there that are popular for a time, so companies flock to them, build applications and services in them, and are then forced to maintain that code for years and years to come; which is one of the points of this article.
You are the only one who inferred Javascript's unique circumstances and then extrapolated an irrelevant argument with me based on your own misunderstandings.
If that's the case, care to name off some instances of a language becoming wildly popular for businesses and then just as quickly dying off outside of the JavaScript ecosystem in the last decade?
You seem to be missing the forest for the trees here. You said:
> I don't think a language's popularity has anything to do with it being a good, well-thought-out language.
Then used JavaScript as an example of this:
> Just look at Javascript.
I have sufficiently explained why your correlation does not equal causation, as JavaScript is the only language I'm aware of to have gone through being popular while at the same time being a poorly-built language in the past decade, and hence, being a poor analogy as an attempt to prove your point.
If you'd care to at the very least show some other examples, I'd be overjoyed to see them.
For the record, I completely agree with your point—I also don't believe popularity is directly correlated by the design of the language—but I don't have a single shred of evidence to back it up, only examples from outside of the programming ecosystem. That's why I'm inquiring.
My first post was directly related to the comment I replied to. It also relates to the article. I agree that you're reply was irrelevant, as is your second.
There is a brilliant language that looks like Javascript that is the language you might be thinking of when you say "Javascript is pretty good". Unfortunately, that language only exists in people's heads.
In practice, Javascript is full of crazy weird edge cases where it is required to behave in an insane manner because the browser vendors have all been juggling the idiot ball amongst themselves when implementing it.
I like Javascript. I don't see any problem with the language itself. I see problems with the browser ecosystem as a whole, but that's another story.
I understand the argument "popular != good", but I think that if in the long term a tool raises in popularity this is not random.
There should be reasons for that.
