I hate Javascript....

[John Y]

I have really enjoyed reading these comments. I am personally a huge fan of JavaScript, but that doesn't mean it's any better or worse than any others' choice of language. I have never had the opportunity to work with much Silverlight/.NET so maybe thats why I leveraged a lot in JavaScript - especially for some neat bells and whistles on my web-systems. And yes, with HTML5, Javascript is in the spot light - but that doens't mean everyone has to use it, right? And for all the non-Javascript developers out there, I will agree with one thing - when Javascript is too heavily used, it can cause a lag in performance - so it should be used with wisdom :-) And the reliance on libraries liek jQuery (which I also use from time to time), can also be too heavily used and cause huge performance issues. Sometimes, there is no need to use it, but people still do. Maybe some articles/blogs on when to use Javascript(jQuery) vs when not to would be great here! Thanks and happy coding to all! John Y. ________ John Y. Developer

[eslsys]

function alarm_bells() { alert("Javascript Hater!"); }

[Lost User]

I despise the entire HTML stack. I loved the promise of the web but it's a nightmare putting together server side/client side code that uses entirely different technologies along with clunky HTML that has to work in several different browsers all against standards that aren't due out for another 10 years. Javascript is just one piece of the nightmare - the whole thing is a mess from start to finish. Unfortunately, it will never be fixed because the web is seen as international property and it's been handed over to a "consortium" that can take 10+ years to finalize a standard. That time line alone tells you all that needs to be said about the future of the web - a bunch of self-aggrandizing blowhards took it over - it's dead. By the time those guys get around to making a standard the interwebs will be ruled by App Stores. Nobody needs the World Wide Web anyways - buy 1/2 dozen apps that meet your needs and you're done. For the price of 1/2 dozen apps you can leave the world of clunky, slow, muddled interfaces behind. Seriously, you'll be on your 5th tablet with all the functionality you'll ever need when a headline pops up declaring the HMTL 5 standards finalized. You'll be like: What's HTML?

[Erion Pici]

Power is nothing without control... Javascript is very useful. Get yourself a manual, so you can control it.

[BubingaMan]

ahmed zahmed wrote:

you can

Actually, no. You cannot. WinRT is only available for metro applications, not for desktop applications. On the desktop, nothing changes. You are still in win32 hell.

[BubingaMan]

I'm not a fan of javascript myself. Several things bother me though... This idea that somehow silverlight is "dead". This is completely ridiculous. Silverlight is anything but "dead". It's been years now since XAML was introduced but winforms is still alive and kicking. It's been years since .NET was introduced, but it didn't kill C++. A technology is dead the day that it stops working or where development tools no longer support it. That day eventually comes for EVERY language, but I don't expect that to happen to SL in the next decade. Another thing that bothers me is this blind mentality of arbitrarily choosing a technology to develop in. I know PLENTY of people who choose technology X by default, no matter what kind of application they are engineering... no matter what the target user base is... Just without thinking, it's technology X because "I'm an X-developer!!!". It's asanine. Choose the right tool for the job. If you are building an application that needs to be usable on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones... off course you will choose JS. For the sheer fact that it's basicly the only technology that allows such cross platform stuff. Honestly, that's the only situation I can imagine where you would want to choose JS over anything else. Personally, I'm a XAML dude myself. So whenever it suits my needs, XAML/C# will be my technology of choice. Seeing as I am a 100% LOB developer, I see no reason to use another technology. All my customers are on windows anyway.

[Super Lloyd]

I like your post! :P I personally get annoyed at comment such as "Silverlight is dead too" (heard just yesterday from the said guy!!)

A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.

[Lost User]

And putting an ORM into the mess gives it a certain special flavour too :)

[Fabio Franco]

I hate it too. I hate to depend on it even more. Unfortunately, somethings can only be accomplished in JavaScript if you're web application is to be independent of plugins and completely crawlable without having to resort with special mechanisms.

"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

[BubingaMan]

Super Lloyd wrote:

"Silverlight is dead too" (heard just yesterday from the said guy!!)

Next time he says that, show him a present day job opening requesting a Cobol engineer and then ask him if Cobol is to be considered "dead" as well... And then, off course, point him to the fact that Silverlight 5 is due for release in 2 months. If that's defined as "dead" these days, then I'm no longer worried about dying. Haha.

[englebart]

See if Google Web Toolkit will fit your bill. It lets you write in Java, but compiles to JavaScript.

[Michael Collins Intervalia]

This is just the same group of people that tried to claim that XML was going to solve all world problems including hunger and poverty. JavaScript is awesome, so is XML and JSON, and C++ and C# and Java and assembly. But I have a toolbox with ALL of those tools and many more. I try to use the best tool for the job. I am amazed how many people see everything as a nail and want to only use one tool for all jobs. Oh well. These trends come and go. So will the JavaScript is God's own language trend!

[Florin Jurcovici 0]

Maybe you just don't use the right tools? I mean, anybody trying to write Silverlight apps without a readymade library of controls would be pretty much out of luck. Similarly, if you want to write rich web apps (like for instance a spreadsheet in a browser), if you start from scratch (i.e. Javascript without any library), you're in the same situation. Look up sproutcore, ext or qooxdoo (my favorite, because it has a very convenient OO layer, not just widgets - I didn't mention GWT because although it generates Javascript in the end the programming happens in Java, and we're talking about Javascript as a language here). Working with any of these is quite a bit nicer than Silverlight. Not to mention that I never liked WPF - it's sort of like re-inventing HTML, just in a non-portable way. Comparing jQuery to silverlight is wrong. Silverlight relies on a rich user interface technology, and lots of 3rd party libraries of widgets, whereas jQuery is just a library for adding fancy stuff to web pages, although a rich and mature one. True, there are jQueryUI components, but all in all they're just patchwork - there's no working together on these components to make them work smoothly together, and there's not too many of them.

[ISanti]

I don't hate Javascript, it's just I love C#, F#, WPF, Silverlight, etc.

[mathomp3]

if all you going to do is simple in and out data moving / shuffling, javascript not all that bad, pop in some jquery and off you go. When you are creating that business application that is going to run on a windows machine anyways, requires file storage (real storage not the new web stuff), and needs to interface with Microsoft word to give the user a true text editor in their web application. Then yeah javascript not going to do you any favors. I feel your pain though, one of our vendors uses javascript and html5, as they transition their systems over, which is wonderful runs every where. They were so excited, till I spent 1 afternoon reverse engineering their code some, and sent a bunch of post commands, overloaded the database, and shut down the webservice. Oh and data mining that baby was pretty easy as well. After that they have spent 4 weeks trying to get the service locked down to the appropriate users, which is becoming a pain cause they don't have a security layer, so they had to build that in, and I still hacked it. Sorry but when it comes to sensitive business data, can't be playing around in javascript without knowing exactly what your doing and how to lock it down tight. nothing impossible or even terribly difficult to do, but....... 95% of the javascript is the way to go user group forgets to even care about that type of stuff, they look for the new jquery api released by some random person and go awesome, lets use it. Also while jquery is decently safe, I have found tons of free javascript on the web that pass data to lots of random locations. For example had a simple table sorta like jgrids. Was really well done, got to digging in the code it passed the json data from the get it received to a 3rd party URL for a post. So yes my table was forwarding all data collected from my servers to another server. It was a big pain to find as it was just 5 lines of code, buried deep in minimized javascript. But overall it really really depends on what the target audience is. I always build on the .net stack, and mix in javascript, silverlight, webforms, as needed. I never choose a single code to go with. I mix and match and build fail over. I get all the power of the .net stack, and code behind, have the "client side flexibility" of javascript, the graphics power and hardware integration of silverlight. Sure my customers complain a feature or such doesn't work on their phones as well as it does on their desktop. We reply what the hell you expect? no not really, but it's what we want to put.

[Steve Naidamast]

I have been in the field over 35 years. Every year some technician or pundit makes another prediction about the particular technology they like. As long as the web is based upon the protocols designed in the 1970s, nothing you do will change how it works or how well your applications perform. All of the new ways of "increasing performance" really produce very little in the scheme of actual application performance except to add a lot of extra coding that makes web applications even more difficult to understand than they already are... The only way you can get a web application to perform well as one could expect is to use the base HTTP processes of the web through the use of an MVC\AJAX paradigm. And even here, one benchmark (at least the one I have been able to find) has shown that ASP.NET MVC performs only a little better than regular ASP.NET...

Steve Naidamast Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@ix.netcom.com

[Florin Jurcovici 0]

I was a LOB developer until recently too. I never used Silverlight, unless it was a non-negotiable customer requirement (and it never was). Therefore, IMO using Silverlight just because all your clients are on Windows is a pretty meaningless justification.

[ISanti]

I agree with you, In Spanish to indicate the falsity of the death of institutions, ideas, technologies, etc., sometimes we say the following sentence: "those dead you've killed enjoy very good health". Silverlight the fourth is dead, long live the five. My complaints, because my english is not good.

[BubingaMan]

Florin Jurcovici wrote:

I never used Silverlight, unless it was a non-negotiable customer requirement

In my experience, customers will only rarely request a specific technology in the LOB world. Unless they had a 'strong' IT department with a specific strategy.

Florin Jurcovici wrote:

IMO using Silverlight just because all your clients are on Windows is a pretty meaningless justification.

I agree. And if you read closely you'll see that I said XAML and not Silverlight. Most of the work we do is WPF. Also, the "all our clients are on windows" is not seen as an actual justification or reason to go with XAML. In fact, it's the opposite. If not all our clients would be on windows, we'ld have a justification to NOT use XAML and to think about using something else instead. Hence why I ended that sentence with "all our clients are on windows anyway".

[cpkilekofp]

When I was young, a cup of coffee with cream and sugar would put me to sleep. Ah, the hyperactivity of youth.....