> With the rise of WASM part of me feels like we shouldn't even try to make JS better at multithreading and just use other languages better suited to the purpose.
I think TS is a negative influence on JS, because now instead of saying "maybe we should fix the JS type system" they just say "no need to fix what's broken, people who care will just use TS anyway" (even though TS can only do so much).
On the other hand, TS mainstreamed the idea of typed JS (well, ActionScript did that decades ago, but somehow no one noticed or cared?), so it's also a positive influence?
Most people are drawn to WASM because "I can do frontend stuff without writing JS!" but for the most part that's not true, and in my experience the problems introduced by the indirection and interop, and the complexification of the mental model, and the bloating of the build system (and its fragility), were not worth it and I just switched back to TS.
So I do really wish that JS would be improved -- it remains inescapable -- especially with regard to fixing fundamental design flaws rather than just adding more shiny stuff on top.
I think TS is a negative influence on JS, because now instead of saying "maybe we should fix the JS type system" they just say "no need to fix what's broken, people who care will just use TS anyway" (even though TS can only do so much).
On the other hand, TS mainstreamed the idea of typed JS (well, ActionScript did that decades ago, but somehow no one noticed or cared?), so it's also a positive influence?
Most people are drawn to WASM because "I can do frontend stuff without writing JS!" but for the most part that's not true, and in my experience the problems introduced by the indirection and interop, and the complexification of the mental model, and the bloating of the build system (and its fragility), were not worth it and I just switched back to TS.
So I do really wish that JS would be improved -- it remains inescapable -- especially with regard to fixing fundamental design flaws rather than just adding more shiny stuff on top.