Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Since when has, as relates to the web, standardization above all else been a thing. The web's design was intentionally decentralized and has led to occasional Cambrian Era level explosions of features and tools, that simply manifest. If we "try" to make the next platform, we'll probably fail. If we keep on keeping on, and let it happen, we will certainly succeed.

Centralized, profit driven organizations certainly benefit from having a clear, standard road-map with which to direct their resource deployment so as to maximize return on investment. Their investment. Not to maximize community value.

Standardization of the web will be the death of the web. Building the web-browsers on standards has forced corporations to make their flavor of browser compatible with the world wide web, keeping them from making a proprietary www. But, to standardize a language is a whole other thing. Languages are best when they are maximally flexible, so they do not constrict one from expressing in the world what is currently only in one's imagination.

That is, in my opinion, why despite the crappy design of JavaScript it has been so successful. There are not many languages with less restrictions. Take that away and we'll have a whole bunch of Walmarts, all the same implementation of the same super efficient product with great user experiences for 98% of users. But as the web becomes the global commons, for an Earth with a population of 7.125 billion, well 2% is still 145 million people. So, if you want the perfect solution, the final answer, then standardization requires you to write-off those people, if you want to be intellectually honest about it.




That's a great attitude for the browser--and I completely agree that decentralization is important for the browser--but does your opinion here extend to server-side JS as well?


JS is a language, and my opinion is that languages should be maximally flexible. They must be maximally flexible because a language has the primary function of being the medium through which an individual might transmit their ideas. Since ideas are not limited, languages must not be limited. Server-side JS is still a language. Limiting the language will limit what can be expressed in that language. So, yes, I would say it extends to server-side JS. By simply moving expression upstream it does not change my opinion.

There is that saying, "The Medium Is The Message." The more restrictive the medium, the more restrictive, the more pre-defined, the message is by default. The less restrictive the medium, the less well defined is the default message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message


except that we have many languages, each of which is designed for a slightly different purpose. It is generally more useful to have a wide range of single-purpose tools that can do one job very well, rather than a general-purpose tool that can do lots of things badly.

If you want an analogy, think of a knife. It can be used to cut things very well, but also serves as a really bad screwdriver, bottle opener, toothpick, tent peg, etc. Better to have a tool for each of these tasks than cut your thumb open mis-using your knife.

We maybe need one general-purpose language for trying new stuff out (and I'd argue that that language is actually LISP). The rest need to be single-purpose, designed to do a single job.

Javascript is designed to run in browsers, and recently to run on a server (mostly as a web server). Trying to write real-time systems (for example) in javascript is a bad idea; you can do it, but you will cut your thumb open and there are much better languages available to do it in.

I think the core point I'm trying to make is that programming languages are engineer's tools rather than artistic media. We use the tools to build the thing we want. Tell an engineer that the hammer is the thing being built and they'll tell you you're an idiot.


Are you suggesting for browsers to be sandboxed execution environments ?

Then it will be more like Java Applets or Flash applications, I think some restrictions have lead to better index ability(hyperlinks, search engines) , accessibility in web.

A better medium doesn't necessarily mean untamed or freer medium. If restrictions can create a medium which has better accessibility, then maybe they are not so bad.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: