> I'm not sure putting down JavaScript, web browsers, and the DOM, and saying the ideal future is completely free of apps built on this platform, is technically being "productive" in a conversation ABOUT those things
Would everyone is discussing the high quality of the Emperor's new clothes, is it productive to point out that he is, in fact, naked as a jaybird?
At some point we have to face up to the simple truth that JavaScript, the DOM, XML and HTML-as-she-is-written are bad. The people who assembled them over time aren't evil, or even generally incompetent: there are historical reasons for almost all of the cruft. But that doesn't mean that it's not horribly, horribly crufty, that is is objectively bad and in poor taste.
> The web app platform represents one of the largest, if not literally THE largest, explosions of programming and application development ever seen in the history of humankind.
That's the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum, i.e. arguing that because something is popular is is correct.
> To look at all this and land on the conclusion that JavaScript and the web stack are fucked up‚— "a language that is universally regarded as one of the worst ever" — period, full stop, EOM, throw them out — seems aggressively contemptuous and beside the point.
It is aggressively contemptuous because the current web stack deserves contempt. That is the point.
> It's sort of like looking at a raging party filled with some of the most interesting people you've known and some of the most interesting people you've ever heard of and complaining about the type of speakers being used to play the music.
No, it's more like complaining that each of the interesting people is wearing a blindfold, earmuffs & a gag, with a hobble to prevent him from getting within arm's reach of anyone else and can communicate only by reaching out with a stick or probe and tapping out Morse code messages on other's arms. Sure, all those impressive people are doing a bang-up job of overcoming the absurd limitations of the insane party, but that doesn't make the party one bit less insane.
Wanna back up that beautiful rhetoric with some actual objective reasoning as to why; HTMl, Javascript, the DOM are "bad" and some ideas on the way forward?
It is "objectively" "bad" because if you bring javascript up in certain social circles involving programmers everyone huffs and puffs. I've heard people time after time who've never stepped foot out of a Java IDE complain about how hard it was for them to write something "simple" and "basic" in javascript. Not to claim that there is any real veracity in the wisdom of the crowd, but there are hundreds of thousands of programmers writing working, functional, useful apps in javascript every damn day. People can say that fact is DESPITE the language features but these people ignore that if you want to actually reach customers you have to use the most popular runtime of all time - the browser.
Being unable to have a conversation about the ecosystem because the language isn't to your liking or preferences speaks to me of a closed-off mindset, which as everyone knows is a great trait for programmers to have /s.
Would everyone is discussing the high quality of the Emperor's new clothes, is it productive to point out that he is, in fact, naked as a jaybird?
At some point we have to face up to the simple truth that JavaScript, the DOM, XML and HTML-as-she-is-written are bad. The people who assembled them over time aren't evil, or even generally incompetent: there are historical reasons for almost all of the cruft. But that doesn't mean that it's not horribly, horribly crufty, that is is objectively bad and in poor taste.
> The web app platform represents one of the largest, if not literally THE largest, explosions of programming and application development ever seen in the history of humankind.
That's the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum, i.e. arguing that because something is popular is is correct.
> To look at all this and land on the conclusion that JavaScript and the web stack are fucked up‚— "a language that is universally regarded as one of the worst ever" — period, full stop, EOM, throw them out — seems aggressively contemptuous and beside the point.
It is aggressively contemptuous because the current web stack deserves contempt. That is the point.
> It's sort of like looking at a raging party filled with some of the most interesting people you've known and some of the most interesting people you've ever heard of and complaining about the type of speakers being used to play the music.
No, it's more like complaining that each of the interesting people is wearing a blindfold, earmuffs & a gag, with a hobble to prevent him from getting within arm's reach of anyone else and can communicate only by reaching out with a stick or probe and tapping out Morse code messages on other's arms. Sure, all those impressive people are doing a bang-up job of overcoming the absurd limitations of the insane party, but that doesn't make the party one bit less insane.