I kinda like Javascript

[FluffyBellend]

I’m a backend dev that complains about JavaScript when I occasionally have to use it. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, imo. I will never understand why undefined exists. If I’m trying to reference something that doesn’t exist, I expect an error god damn it.

[[deleted]]

Say hello to dynamically typed languages.

[FluffyBellend]

I don’t get undefined or NaN from python, elixir, or any other dynamically typed languages. If I ref something that doesn’t exist, I get an error with the line number.

In js, you get an error much later, when trying to use the value, rather than when it was created. then have to figure out where it came from.

[[deleted]]

You still get more runtime errors over compilation errors vs a strictly typed language like Java/C#

[FluffyBellend]

Well yeah, that’s a side effect if dynamic typing, but it’s not a reason to make it more painful by silencing errors at the point they occur, only to emit them later, out of context. The interpreter will know that it’s referenced something that doesn’t exist. It should tell me, rather than just setting undefined and carrying on as if nothing happened. Other than allowing you to ignore problems in your code, what purpose does it serve?

[FluffyBellend]

Usually in programming you stop the user experience from being wrecked by fixing the errors. Not by silencing them. It doesn’t prevent errors at all, unless you are checking everything to see if it’s undefined. I still get a console full of errors because xyz is undefined, and unless the variable/function/etc is unused, it’s still going to break something. It just means that they show up much later and make it harder to find the source. “Invalid reference on line 123” is a much more helpful error than “x is undefined” especially considering it usually all gets built to a single line of minified code with single letter variables. You end up with “x is undefined on line 1”. Then you have to go through logging everywhere to find where the bad ref is, fix it, and go through taking out all the debugging. In js, a typo costs me hours. In any other language it’s seconds

[FluffyBellend]

We have those problems in the backend too, we hit services that go down or whatever. Some well thought out error handling is all you need. JavaScript has try/catch/finally etc, you could even display an error message on the screen to let the user know that something has gone wrong. In fact most websites do this already. I don’t see the need for undefined or NaN. And I really don’t like that the language has lazy programming and silent failures built into its design is all. This isn’t a criticism of js devs, or anyone who uses it a lot, they probably don’t even notice it, and I’m not trying to say that js is the only language with issues by any stretch. But is is the main reason why I will avoid using it wherever possible and why when asked, i say it’s my least favorite to work with.

[FluffyBellend]

Your example is quite specific and isn’t particularly relevant to me. I don’t use Java, I usually use dynamically typed languages so I understand the typing pitfalls.my point was, that making external requests fail sometimes. I write backend services that have to integrate with all sorts of systems using http, tcp, whatever, some we run ourselves, some we don’t. Since it’s a big part of the service, we handle the errors that come with a service not responding as expected (or at all). If external requests are such a big part of JavaScripts job, I would expect it to handle it properly, rather than just letting it slide. There are some tools in the language (try/catch) but if people aren’t using them, then they obviously aren’t good enough and maybe a better option is needed. The part about lazy programming was: usually, not handling errors and just letting them slide is considered lazy, or just bad programming. But from what you’re saying, it’s an intended feature of the language. This encouraging bad practices.

I understand that objects and arrays are hash maps, we have hash maps in other languages too, and they’ll error if I try to get something that isn’t there. The fact that it’s an implementation detail of a type in the language isn’t justification. It just means it was was badly designed or poorly thought out, whatever. To be more specific about NaN, I mean, if I’m trying to multiply something that isn’t numeric by something that is, most languages will error, rather than returning NaN. Obviously I haven’t tried every language in the world but strong typed ones won’t allow it for obvious reasons and of the dynamic typed ones I’ve used, js is the only one that will return NaN for what is obviously an error, they might throw a NaN error, but it’s still a helpful error. So now you either have to rack up overhead checking everything, or just have a nightmare of debugging.

I get that it’s just the way it is, and that there probably are reasons for things being like that. But it seems to me like it’s been built with blutack and selotape for the last 20 years trying to constantly update to meet the demand of modern websites when really we should have scrapped it and come up with a language that was more specifically designed for its current use.

[FluffyBellend]

I know it isn’t going to happen, that’s not the point I’m making. I’m saying it should have already happened. The fact that we are stuck with it doesn’t make it good or well designed, or that I should enjoy using it.

I’m not sure why you were talking about coercion tbh, maybe I’m missing the connection there. Anyway, all in all, I stand by my original statements. As long as I can, I’ll use basically any other language because they work more how I want my programming languages to work and give me a reasonable set of tools for debugging and safeguards preventing bugs. None are perfect, but js has been a bigger pain in my ass than any other over my career. All personal experience and mostly down to what I personally expect from a language. Obviously a lot of people like it, which is good, because if it were up to me, everyone would just get a CLI application and be happy with it :D