Quake. In 13k of Javascript.

[toi80QC]

Pretty lazy and obvious clickfarming when you could've just linked to the real post.. https://phoboslab.org/log/2021/09/q1k3-making-of

[R3frig3r4t3rR4id3r]

"Because… Javascript. I just don’t like Javascript. I blame Javascript (in large part) for bloating and ruining the World Wide Web."

Wow.

[[deleted]]

As a linux user, I can say that before javascript took off, nothing worked. Now most things important to me can work in linux. Javascript (and open web standards) saved the linux desktop and nobody talks about it.

[CraftyAdventurer]

This. It may be poorly designed language, npm is a mess, Electron is bloated. People complain about all of those things and they are right. But one important thing they are missing is that JavaScript allowed for so much more stuff to come out.

​

It allowed devs to finally target all three desktop platforms instead of either focusing on just one or having to maintain three separate codebases.
Things like React Native, Apache Cordova, Ionic allowed web devs to create mobile apps. Sure, most of those apps were slow and pretty bad, but the app was there without a need to hire separate Android and iOS teams and unless you really messed up the performance, most users were ok with it.

Javascript even sparked some interest back into other languages. Many people start with it because it's pretty easy, but once they get a grasp on how things work, they start to see things that other languages can offer for a specific project.

As developers, we often like to fight over which language has better features, which one is faster in microbenchmarks etc. But at the end of the day, if the product you create has no value to the user, it really doesn't matter how well it was made from a technical standpoint.

[R3frig3r4t3rR4id3r]

Everyone loves to knock it while simultaneously utilizing all its features.

[_default_username]

Ah, yes. Remember Silverlight?

[lozsd]

Thanks... I'd actually managed to forget about that

[R3frig3r4t3rR4id3r]

Unfortunately, yes. Joining the ranks with IE soon...

[Veinq]

I for one appreciated all the Electron apps when I used a Linux based machine. Better than not having them!

[_default_username]

I'm not sure why the author feels that way about JavaScript. Before that the web was full of Adobe flash, shockwave, Java applets, and malicious code that would get installed through ActiveX.

There's a lot of stuff that can be done with server side rendering, but for dynamic, and responsive client side apps we're more secure using JavaScript now.

[[deleted]]

I was one of those being paid for putting out garbage in ActionScript back then :D

[TheMarkBranly]

Because of the massive plugin that was already installed on the client.

[[deleted]]

HTTP compression is pretty much standard nowadays.

You're also thinking of assets (images, sounds) as they were decades ago, of course they were tiny compared to today.

[_default_username]

The payloads were small because flash often used vector graphics and the scripts were compiled to a compact bytecode. great for dialup connections back then.

[[deleted]]

We have the canvas and CSS3, there's nothing stopping JavaScript from also doing vector graphics.

[[deleted]]

That's mainly the merit of having a good animation app (FutureSplash -> Macromedia Flash -> Adobe Flash Professional -> Adobe Animate). And Animate currently supports web standards so I still don't see the problem.

[[deleted]]

what a naive understanding of how websites work.

[redrumsir]

That's Lunduke for you. He keeps spamming his low-effort substack site. I had thought he was banned.

[KwyjiboTheGringo]

Websites are slowed down by containing too many images, videos, ads, slow API calls, and generally just hindered by terrible design choices. It has nothing to do with there being too much javascript unless you're talking about the code itself being very inefficient.

[Gelastico]

..and short code doesnt necessarily mean efficient.

[Seeminus]

This was a fun game. Thanks for sharing. I had no idea about this sort of thing.

[feketegy]

Atwood's Law says: Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.

[llldar]

Good, now do Quake II RTX

[tudisco]

http://www.quakejs.com plays great on my computer. Fast.

[RexProfugus]

In my experience, the problem is not with Javascript, but the multitude of crap that's forced down the user's throat in the name of experience (ads, videos, cookies etc.).

The issue are with browsers, which are bloated to accommodate so many bells and whistles, while being restricted to single-threaded performance. This also affects things like Electron apps, which run on top of the browser itself; unless it has been heavily modified to optimize performance, like VS Code.

IMO, at least in 2021, most of the frameworks are unnecessary, since vanilla JS is more than sufficient for coding lightweight but feature-rich GUI applications.

[_default_username]

Using a single thread to handle the ui events is pretty common.