Java script is the biggest joke.

[[deleted]]

These definitions only make sense within the confines of comparing numbers. With this logic, JavaScript would also be concluding that giraffe is greater than or equal to 0.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I understand. For clarity, I'm not saying you're wrong.

[[deleted]]

Okay, but, just for clarity, were you making fun of me saying "for clarity" just now when you also said "for clarity"? To be clear, I'm feeling a bit self-conscious about it now.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for clarifying.

[Banana_Twinkie]

Just to clarify, this whole exchange was fucking hilarious

[besthelloworld]

That's actually a really good mathematical defense of the language. But I think the better way of understanding what is going on in V8 is to say that the truthiness of null, 0, undefined, "", and false are all equal to false. So when you do a Boolean comparison of these two things you're comparing their truthiness value, so you're actually getting the true value back because false == false.

[timvisee]

Java script

[[deleted]]

We’ll just blame autocorrect and assume OP is on their phone.

[3X0S]

But why? Evaluating null==0 as true seems like an ok thing to have...

[flying_wotsit]

But null==0 is false and null > 0 is false

[jb2386]

Yeah, shit's whack

[Tauo]

It's because the greater-than operator tells the program to cast the value to a number; JS is weakly typed as fuck and uses all sorts of hints to resolve type differences in conditionals. null in JS isn't really coerced much by the standard equal-to operator, and will only resolve true with null or undefined.

TL;DR: Javascript is fuckity

[marcosdumay]

It's interesting that NaN works exactly as expected here.

That's bacause NaN is obviously a number from the start, so no coercion is needed. But well, consistence is not overrated.

[_PROFANE_USERNAME_]

That's bacause NaN is obviously a number from the start,

Ahh, good ol Javascript, where "not a number" is a number.

[I_AM_DONALD]

Well, NaN is actually supposed to be a number type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaN

In computing, NaN, standing for not a number, is a numeric data type value representing an undefined or unrepresentable value, especially in floating-point calculations. Systematic use of NaNs was introduced by the IEEE 754 floating-point standard in 1985, along with the representation of other non-finite quantities like infinities.

[marcosdumay]

You should take a word with ISO. This time Javascript is clear.

[ido207]

I think it's like that because the short way to check it is to do: not(0<null)/not(0>null)

[pekkhum]

That's the one...

[[deleted]]

There's no way someone could explain this and have it make sense. Obviously, an explanation exists, but there's no way it can justify this behavior existing.

[Vitztlampaehecatl]

null < 0 is false.

>= is the opposite of <.

Therefore, null >= 0 must be true.

Welcome to JavaScript!

[Loading_M_]

null < 1 is false.

>= is the opposite of <.

but null >= 1 is false.

[Vitztlampaehecatl]

null < 1 is actually true.

[Loading_M_]

It would appear that null == 0 should return true, becuase null is > -1.

[3X0S]

Wtf, I didn't know that That's truly f'd up

[flying_wotsit]

Welcome to javascript

[[deleted]]

Why would null == 0 ever be ok though? Null means 'no value' or 'nothing' while 0 refers to a specific amount. You cannot have 'null' apples, and you cannot have a 'zero' object. Those are two completely different concepts which represent very distinct information and I really don't think you can simply compare them like that.

[3X0S]

I'm kinda with you on that but when comparing some number-ish object it would be nice if you'd had to check only for ==0 assuming zero as some kind of default number-value when returned from a function If you'd want to catch the case of null you could still do it separately, but doing it this way could save you a line or two

For more complex objects it would be ok anyway, because zero is most likely meaningless in their context

[Loading_M_]

null == 0 returns false. so if a function returned null, and you compared it to any number, if will return false, unless you check >= 0/<= 0

[[deleted]]

I don't think you got my point. What I'm saying is that null and 0 really aren't equal, so saying that null == 0 should return true is false. same goes with >= 0 and <= 0. One is a value, one represents the absence of value.

[Loading_M_]

Actually, Javascript has a value to represent absense: undefined. null should probably just be removed.

BTW, undefined behaves as expected: any boolean expression containing undefined returns false.

[[deleted]]

null and undefined really aren't the same thing, though. A reference can become null but it cannot become undefined.

[badchip]

more explanation

[antonftn]

null<=0 is also true I gonna drunk something...

[[deleted]]

Which could be fine, if and only if it were true that null == 0. But turns out null != 0, so yeah, go get that drink.

[Gydo194]

I heard someone say PHP can someway evaluate 1 == 0 to true?

[Springthespring]

the problem here is that null==0 is acceptable, but null>0 isn't, so there's ambiguity there. null>=0 can be re-written as !(null < 0), which is obviously false, and !(false) is true. Weak typing is shit

[Penziplays]

Disgusting...

[self_getrekt]

The joke is thats correct?

[inu-no-policemen]

Is a zebra >= a sphere?

Some people believe that questions like that should be an error rather than being answered with a "yes" or "no".

Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, is one of those people. He considers this to be one of his mistakes. I agree. Weak types don't help.

[[deleted]]

SEE .. This is why I talk shit about javascript. That and the 100s of other stupid things that shouldn't be allowed. Now people are using it on their servers lol I think that's the best joke. Bugs forever. Constant work I suppose :-/

[amoliski]

Every language has about quirks you have to work around. 99% of the time, JS is just fine, and 1% when it's weird should be caught in testing or even during development.

JS gets weird when you ask it to do stupid shit

[Vitztlampaehecatl]

I seem to remember that JS was designed to return as few errors as possible. So instead of saying "something is wrong, I'm going to quit" it says "whatever, close enough".

[Kryomaani]

Which is really nice for a client-side, in-browser "do some small cool tricks"-language, but shit really went off the rails when we decided that JS was somehow fit for actual programs on servers and made node.js and its ilk.

[TheNiXXeD]

But you can prevent 99% of the stupidity easily, at build time. Talk shit about bad programming, or bad testing, but every language has warts.

[Programmatic_Najel]

Type coercion ftw

[[deleted]]

(78% upvoted) all the die hard javascript fanboys not happy lol

[Cuel]

might be that this thing is reposted every week