Here's a specific reason devs hate JavaScript!
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ZurdoDev wrote:
I love JS. Does that make me NOT a developer?
No, no. Of course not. I mean, if you become addicted to any substance, does that make you not an addict? I'll let you answer that for myself. :laugh:
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A poor craftsman blames his tools. Javascript (or any language) is as good or bad as the developer using it. You can paint yourself in a corner using any language the only difference is the color of the paint! Sorry guys, but tell me that ain't the truth. ;-)
If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! - Red Adair
A good craftsman blames himself, for not bringing the right tols to the job.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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ouch
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
ZurdoDev wrote:
ouch
:-D Please don't let it spread around, but I really like JavaScript too. I like it because it is proliferate --- browsers are everywhere -- you can write code anywhere! I just wish it had some more and better tools for debugging and compiler warnings so development with it could be more structured and systematic. But sometimes I just really like it because it is so wild and zany too. It's so dynamic you can do crazy cool things with it. Also, the Canvas (drawing / gaming) stuff that you can do is amazing and quite easy to learn. Check out my robotDots article (HTML5 Canvas : Clean JavaScript & Code Organization Allows Faster Dev, Easier Extensibility[^]) or my console in a web page article (Command Console in your browser via HTML5 Canvas & JavaScript[^]) here at CP. Of course you are a real dev. :thumbsup:
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ZurdoDev wrote:
ouch
:-D Please don't let it spread around, but I really like JavaScript too. I like it because it is proliferate --- browsers are everywhere -- you can write code anywhere! I just wish it had some more and better tools for debugging and compiler warnings so development with it could be more structured and systematic. But sometimes I just really like it because it is so wild and zany too. It's so dynamic you can do crazy cool things with it. Also, the Canvas (drawing / gaming) stuff that you can do is amazing and quite easy to learn. Check out my robotDots article (HTML5 Canvas : Clean JavaScript & Code Organization Allows Faster Dev, Easier Extensibility[^]) or my console in a web page article (Command Console in your browser via HTML5 Canvas & JavaScript[^]) here at CP. Of course you are a real dev. :thumbsup:
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A convention in JS (and it is just a convention, I do not know if JSLint checks for it) is to name functions that are used as constructors with names starting with a capital letter and functions not used as constructors with names starting with lowercase letters (or $ or _). So, if you had used that convention, you would have written 'new Room()' and you would have been safe.
As with all conventions, there are many: Where I work, we use _ to designate private stuff, and $ to designate DOM objects...
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It's not just JS, there's other languages where the compiler just chugs along trying to make sense of whatever code is there. VB isn't much better (although option strict and option explicit help). Or what about C? Ever had a nonsensical (it seems) error 14 lines later than where you made the mistake? And that's supposed to be THE system language on the planet.
At my first employer as a very junior software engineer (though we called ourselves programmers back then - early 1990s), we used a variant of the PICK operating system called UniVERSE that ran on AIX. Our code was mainly in PICK BASIC, which was a "business BASIC" variant. With the version we were using, we'd sometimes run into bugs that would throw an error at runtime, but when you'd run it in the debugger (which was a nice step-wise debugger, with tons of nice features for the time), it would pass right by the line with the supposed error, and work just fine. Then you'd exit the debugger, run the same piece of code - and it would work perfectly! Think about that - it was a literal debugger! Even so, it was hella annoying...
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At my first employer as a very junior software engineer (though we called ourselves programmers back then - early 1990s), we used a variant of the PICK operating system called UniVERSE that ran on AIX. Our code was mainly in PICK BASIC, which was a "business BASIC" variant. With the version we were using, we'd sometimes run into bugs that would throw an error at runtime, but when you'd run it in the debugger (which was a nice step-wise debugger, with tons of nice features for the time), it would pass right by the line with the supposed error, and work just fine. Then you'd exit the debugger, run the same piece of code - and it would work perfectly! Think about that - it was a literal debugger! Even so, it was hella annoying...
The heisenbug, a bug disappearing when being looked at. My own experience with such bugs boils down to mostly 2 situations: 1. Timing conditions, the debugger (by principle) slows code down. Solution: Introduce a Sleep(300). 2. Code design to behave differently under a debugger. I remember inheriting a piece of code written like that, cursing loud enough to get asked WTF is going on my several colleagues, throwing this piece of trash away and reimplementing the same functionality anew.
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I'm working on a prototype for a friend. We're attempting to turn a leadership exercise / game into an automated thing. Basically you have 5 people who each take a character type (barbarian, elf, thief, wizard or leader) and attempt to make it through a 36 room dungeon. It's currently played on posterboard with some real tokens so we are keeping it very simple. "I could write that up for you as an HTML5 Canvas game," said I. And so it began. I draw a grid of 6x6 (36 rooms). I put in the obstacles users cannot see. I allow them to move their tokens. Things are going along swimmingly in JavaScript and I'm generating functionality quickly. It's only 1000 lines of code. (That's like 4 printed pages. Not bad.) Suddenly I have this bug. It's on line 238 and tells me "room does not have a constructor" and it only occurs if I move a token and then restart the game. What!?! It looks like the following:
gameVars.allRooms.push(new room({location:i}));
Line 238 has not changed in many iterations (I'm using Git so I can tell).
new room({location:i})just sends in a json object which is used to initialize the object. It's quite simple. But finding the bug is very difficult. After hours of picking it apart line-by-line I find a line of code I suspect that is down in another function and shouldn't affect anything. It's way down on line 756 and the compiler has never said anything about it:function playerMovementHandler(playerTokenIdx){
var output = document.getElementById("output");
var currentPlayer = gameVars.allPlayers[playerTokenIdx];
room = hitTestRoom(currentPlayer,gameVars.allRooms);Do you see that? I accidentally didn't type
var. Sure it seems obvious now. If I had named that room variable anything else (different from the name of the function/class) it wouldn't have ever hurt me either. But, but, but... JavaScript compiler why couldn't you have mentioned it? Maybe if I'd had strict enabled or something. It's me shooting myself in the foot, I know. Here's The Terrible Explanation But the deal is that in this case the JavaScript compiler was redefining my room class (which are functions in JavaScript) using thehitTestRoom()function instead of just calling thehitTestRoom()function and returning the room object. So, when I would restart the game after moving a game token the code would return to the top with the room class redefined anraddevus wrote:
...in this case the JavaScript compiler...
That might be your problem, you're compiling and interpreted language! Seriously, though, if you're concerned with size (as mentioned above) just minify the production version.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
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As with all conventions, there are many: Where I work, we use _ to designate private stuff, and $ to designate DOM objects...
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I'm working on a prototype for a friend. We're attempting to turn a leadership exercise / game into an automated thing. Basically you have 5 people who each take a character type (barbarian, elf, thief, wizard or leader) and attempt to make it through a 36 room dungeon. It's currently played on posterboard with some real tokens so we are keeping it very simple. "I could write that up for you as an HTML5 Canvas game," said I. And so it began. I draw a grid of 6x6 (36 rooms). I put in the obstacles users cannot see. I allow them to move their tokens. Things are going along swimmingly in JavaScript and I'm generating functionality quickly. It's only 1000 lines of code. (That's like 4 printed pages. Not bad.) Suddenly I have this bug. It's on line 238 and tells me "room does not have a constructor" and it only occurs if I move a token and then restart the game. What!?! It looks like the following:
gameVars.allRooms.push(new room({location:i}));
Line 238 has not changed in many iterations (I'm using Git so I can tell).
new room({location:i})just sends in a json object which is used to initialize the object. It's quite simple. But finding the bug is very difficult. After hours of picking it apart line-by-line I find a line of code I suspect that is down in another function and shouldn't affect anything. It's way down on line 756 and the compiler has never said anything about it:function playerMovementHandler(playerTokenIdx){
var output = document.getElementById("output");
var currentPlayer = gameVars.allPlayers[playerTokenIdx];
room = hitTestRoom(currentPlayer,gameVars.allRooms);Do you see that? I accidentally didn't type
var. Sure it seems obvious now. If I had named that room variable anything else (different from the name of the function/class) it wouldn't have ever hurt me either. But, but, but... JavaScript compiler why couldn't you have mentioned it? Maybe if I'd had strict enabled or something. It's me shooting myself in the foot, I know. Here's The Terrible Explanation But the deal is that in this case the JavaScript compiler was redefining my room class (which are functions in JavaScript) using thehitTestRoom()function instead of just calling thehitTestRoom()function and returning the room object. So, when I would restart the game after moving a game token the code would return to the top with the room class redefined anraddevus wrote:
But, but, but... JavaScript compiler why couldn't you have mentioned it?
Isn't "Javascript compiler" a contradiction in terms? A non-sequitur? An oxymoron? A Trump "truth?" A Fox New fiction? Something that doesn't actually exist in this space-time continuum?
Latest Article - A Concise Overview of Threads Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
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raddevus wrote:
But, but, but... JavaScript compiler why couldn't you have mentioned it?
Isn't "Javascript compiler" a contradiction in terms? A non-sequitur? An oxymoron? A Trump "truth?" A Fox New fiction? Something that doesn't actually exist in this space-time continuum?
Latest Article - A Concise Overview of Threads Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
Marc Clifton wrote:
Isn't "Javascript compiler" a contradiction in terms?
Well, I know it's really an interpreter but if you read a bit about the work that the Angular team did they actually talk about their pre-compiler and how that JavaScript does indeed actually compile the code before it runs. Is JavaScript really interpreted or compiled language? | Void Canvas[^] I also watched pluralsight course Advanced JavaScript by Kyle Simpson (JS guru) (Advanced JavaScript Online Course | Pluralsight[^]) and he is the one where I originally picked up on this. Amazon You Don't Know JS - Kyle Simpson[^] Finally, this StackOverflow has the quotes from Kyle Simpson about it being a compiled language: Javascript - Compiled language? - Stack Overflow[^]
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raddevus wrote:
...in this case the JavaScript compiler...
That might be your problem, you're compiling and interpreted language! Seriously, though, if you're concerned with size (as mentioned above) just minify the production version.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
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raddevus wrote:
...in this case the JavaScript compiler...
That might be your problem, you're compiling and interpreted language! Seriously, though, if you're concerned with size (as mentioned above) just minify the production version.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
Nathan Minier wrote:
just minify the production version
Minification is a 'brilliant' idea which is generally horrible in practice. Debugging minified code is a pain. Here's a link that may help some people javascript - How to effectively debug minified JS files? - Stack Overflow[^]
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I'm working on a prototype for a friend. We're attempting to turn a leadership exercise / game into an automated thing. Basically you have 5 people who each take a character type (barbarian, elf, thief, wizard or leader) and attempt to make it through a 36 room dungeon. It's currently played on posterboard with some real tokens so we are keeping it very simple. "I could write that up for you as an HTML5 Canvas game," said I. And so it began. I draw a grid of 6x6 (36 rooms). I put in the obstacles users cannot see. I allow them to move their tokens. Things are going along swimmingly in JavaScript and I'm generating functionality quickly. It's only 1000 lines of code. (That's like 4 printed pages. Not bad.) Suddenly I have this bug. It's on line 238 and tells me "room does not have a constructor" and it only occurs if I move a token and then restart the game. What!?! It looks like the following:
gameVars.allRooms.push(new room({location:i}));
Line 238 has not changed in many iterations (I'm using Git so I can tell).
new room({location:i})just sends in a json object which is used to initialize the object. It's quite simple. But finding the bug is very difficult. After hours of picking it apart line-by-line I find a line of code I suspect that is down in another function and shouldn't affect anything. It's way down on line 756 and the compiler has never said anything about it:function playerMovementHandler(playerTokenIdx){
var output = document.getElementById("output");
var currentPlayer = gameVars.allPlayers[playerTokenIdx];
room = hitTestRoom(currentPlayer,gameVars.allRooms);Do you see that? I accidentally didn't type
var. Sure it seems obvious now. If I had named that room variable anything else (different from the name of the function/class) it wouldn't have ever hurt me either. But, but, but... JavaScript compiler why couldn't you have mentioned it? Maybe if I'd had strict enabled or something. It's me shooting myself in the foot, I know. Here's The Terrible Explanation But the deal is that in this case the JavaScript compiler was redefining my room class (which are functions in JavaScript) using thehitTestRoom()function instead of just calling thehitTestRoom()function and returning the room object. So, when I would restart the game after moving a game token the code would return to the top with the room class redefined an -
I'm working on a prototype for a friend. We're attempting to turn a leadership exercise / game into an automated thing. Basically you have 5 people who each take a character type (barbarian, elf, thief, wizard or leader) and attempt to make it through a 36 room dungeon. It's currently played on posterboard with some real tokens so we are keeping it very simple. "I could write that up for you as an HTML5 Canvas game," said I. And so it began. I draw a grid of 6x6 (36 rooms). I put in the obstacles users cannot see. I allow them to move their tokens. Things are going along swimmingly in JavaScript and I'm generating functionality quickly. It's only 1000 lines of code. (That's like 4 printed pages. Not bad.) Suddenly I have this bug. It's on line 238 and tells me "room does not have a constructor" and it only occurs if I move a token and then restart the game. What!?! It looks like the following:
gameVars.allRooms.push(new room({location:i}));
Line 238 has not changed in many iterations (I'm using Git so I can tell).
new room({location:i})just sends in a json object which is used to initialize the object. It's quite simple. But finding the bug is very difficult. After hours of picking it apart line-by-line I find a line of code I suspect that is down in another function and shouldn't affect anything. It's way down on line 756 and the compiler has never said anything about it:function playerMovementHandler(playerTokenIdx){
var output = document.getElementById("output");
var currentPlayer = gameVars.allPlayers[playerTokenIdx];
room = hitTestRoom(currentPlayer,gameVars.allRooms);Do you see that? I accidentally didn't type
var. Sure it seems obvious now. If I had named that room variable anything else (different from the name of the function/class) it wouldn't have ever hurt me either. But, but, but... JavaScript compiler why couldn't you have mentioned it? Maybe if I'd had strict enabled or something. It's me shooting myself in the foot, I know. Here's The Terrible Explanation But the deal is that in this case the JavaScript compiler was redefining my room class (which are functions in JavaScript) using thehitTestRoom()function instead of just calling thehitTestRoom()function and returning the room object. So, when I would restart the game after moving a game token the code would return to the top with the room class redefined anyou keep saying "compiler" but in JavaScript there's no such thing. JavaScript runs under an interpreter, that's why you're able to have such things as
eval("_javascript code here_"). :) The closest thing you may get to a compiler is to using something like jslint. Edit: I've seen your compiler links. Interesting. So yeah, you've a point.#SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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The heisenbug, a bug disappearing when being looked at. My own experience with such bugs boils down to mostly 2 situations: 1. Timing conditions, the debugger (by principle) slows code down. Solution: Introduce a Sleep(300). 2. Code design to behave differently under a debugger. I remember inheriting a piece of code written like that, cursing loud enough to get asked WTF is going on my several colleagues, throwing this piece of trash away and reimplementing the same functionality anew.
Member 9167057 wrote:
heisenbug
:thumbsup::thumbsup: :laugh: :laugh:
#SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Nathan Minier wrote:
just minify the production version
Minification is a 'brilliant' idea which is generally horrible in practice. Debugging minified code is a pain. Here's a link that may help some people javascript - How to effectively debug minified JS files? - Stack Overflow[^]
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
GuyThiebaut wrote:
generally horrible in practice
I can't agree. I think that, as you said, debugging it is painful, but that's why you only minify production.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
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I'm working on a prototype for a friend. We're attempting to turn a leadership exercise / game into an automated thing. Basically you have 5 people who each take a character type (barbarian, elf, thief, wizard or leader) and attempt to make it through a 36 room dungeon. It's currently played on posterboard with some real tokens so we are keeping it very simple. "I could write that up for you as an HTML5 Canvas game," said I. And so it began. I draw a grid of 6x6 (36 rooms). I put in the obstacles users cannot see. I allow them to move their tokens. Things are going along swimmingly in JavaScript and I'm generating functionality quickly. It's only 1000 lines of code. (That's like 4 printed pages. Not bad.) Suddenly I have this bug. It's on line 238 and tells me "room does not have a constructor" and it only occurs if I move a token and then restart the game. What!?! It looks like the following:
gameVars.allRooms.push(new room({location:i}));
Line 238 has not changed in many iterations (I'm using Git so I can tell).
new room({location:i})just sends in a json object which is used to initialize the object. It's quite simple. But finding the bug is very difficult. After hours of picking it apart line-by-line I find a line of code I suspect that is down in another function and shouldn't affect anything. It's way down on line 756 and the compiler has never said anything about it:function playerMovementHandler(playerTokenIdx){
var output = document.getElementById("output");
var currentPlayer = gameVars.allPlayers[playerTokenIdx];
room = hitTestRoom(currentPlayer,gameVars.allRooms);Do you see that? I accidentally didn't type
var. Sure it seems obvious now. If I had named that room variable anything else (different from the name of the function/class) it wouldn't have ever hurt me either. But, but, but... JavaScript compiler why couldn't you have mentioned it? Maybe if I'd had strict enabled or something. It's me shooting myself in the foot, I know. Here's The Terrible Explanation But the deal is that in this case the JavaScript compiler was redefining my room class (which are functions in JavaScript) using thehitTestRoom()function instead of just calling thehitTestRoom()function and returning the room object. So, when I would restart the game after moving a game token the code would return to the top with the room class redefined an- Use a proper IDE with linter /thread
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GuyThiebaut wrote:
generally horrible in practice
I can't agree. I think that, as you said, debugging it is painful, but that's why you only minify production.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
I've done a few node.js projects...develop in TypeScript, transcode to js, and minify the transcoded js. It's a couple lines in your build script, and the file size (if you keep all the files in your build chain for those few times when you question whether the TypeScript transcode was problematic) is negligible. When you deploy, the deployment script only lifts the minified js.
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I'm working on a prototype for a friend. We're attempting to turn a leadership exercise / game into an automated thing. Basically you have 5 people who each take a character type (barbarian, elf, thief, wizard or leader) and attempt to make it through a 36 room dungeon. It's currently played on posterboard with some real tokens so we are keeping it very simple. "I could write that up for you as an HTML5 Canvas game," said I. And so it began. I draw a grid of 6x6 (36 rooms). I put in the obstacles users cannot see. I allow them to move their tokens. Things are going along swimmingly in JavaScript and I'm generating functionality quickly. It's only 1000 lines of code. (That's like 4 printed pages. Not bad.) Suddenly I have this bug. It's on line 238 and tells me "room does not have a constructor" and it only occurs if I move a token and then restart the game. What!?! It looks like the following:
gameVars.allRooms.push(new room({location:i}));
Line 238 has not changed in many iterations (I'm using Git so I can tell).
new room({location:i})just sends in a json object which is used to initialize the object. It's quite simple. But finding the bug is very difficult. After hours of picking it apart line-by-line I find a line of code I suspect that is down in another function and shouldn't affect anything. It's way down on line 756 and the compiler has never said anything about it:function playerMovementHandler(playerTokenIdx){
var output = document.getElementById("output");
var currentPlayer = gameVars.allPlayers[playerTokenIdx];
room = hitTestRoom(currentPlayer,gameVars.allRooms);Do you see that? I accidentally didn't type
var. Sure it seems obvious now. If I had named that room variable anything else (different from the name of the function/class) it wouldn't have ever hurt me either. But, but, but... JavaScript compiler why couldn't you have mentioned it? Maybe if I'd had strict enabled or something. It's me shooting myself in the foot, I know. Here's The Terrible Explanation But the deal is that in this case the JavaScript compiler was redefining my room class (which are functions in JavaScript) using thehitTestRoom()function instead of just calling thehitTestRoom()function and returning the room object. So, when I would restart the game after moving a game token the code would return to the top with the room class redefined an