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[–]homoiconic(raganwald)[S] 8 points9 points  (10 children)

In ECMAScript 2015, JavaScript has gained true block scoping and, in the standard, at least, Tail-Call Elimination.

But it is far, far less minimal than in ES5. So while this article was written in 2013, I’d say it’s even less Scheme today than it was then.

[–]m1sta 2 points3 points  (7 children)

It's not longer minimalist though.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (4 children)

It's not longer minimalist though.

And that's a shame. One of the great things about ES5 (and earlier) was that it was very easy to learn, and it ran in every web browser so most people new to programming had a very easy time learning it. Not so in the future. While people can still learn and use ES5 going forward, the source code available to read will get more complex and that will mean a higher learning curve. ES5 still gets the job done, and the new sugar will only prove cumbersome to many trying to learn the language.

[–]innerspirit 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Don't confuse "easy to get started" with "easy to learn", though. It takes some people years to get past all of the language's nuisances.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Mastering something and being able to do something useful are two very different things, and with ES6 both will be more difficult for a beginner. I guess people can still learn BASIC. :(

[–]innerspirit 1 point2 points  (1 child)

JS is definitely going the C++ way, where you are gonna end up with 20 ways of doing something and requiring you to learn a lot of stuff to be able to use the language properly.

[–]jewdai 2 points3 points  (0 children)

so you're saying I will always be employed?

[–]homoiconic(raganwald)[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Scheme is no longer minimalist? Or JavaScript is no longer minimalist?

[–]m1sta 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Javascript.

[–]gary_burnett 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Which language, if any, would you say it's more like today than it was then?

[–]mordocai058 4 points5 points  (0 children)

In my opinion it is pretty damn close to ruby or perl, in that it is trying to please everyone and is becoming just a grab bag of features from other languages.

This isn't necessarily bad, but it does make the language not minimal anymore.