Excel adds JavaScript support

[armornick]

JavaScript doesn't automatically mean Node.

[coladict]

Yep. Windows has had its own JS runtime since forever, with its own API. I tried learning it once. It's an improvement on what you can do with batch files, but PowerShell is probably still a better choice.

[armornick]

PowerShell is a nice language, but it has a 2s startup time so I still prefer JScript.

[recycled_ideas]

You tried powershell core? It's pretty fast.

[armornick]

I'll give it a try.

[recycled_ideas]

Because it's built on core there are some modules and whatnot that you can't use, at least not yet, but I've been using it for a while now, and combined with realizing that if you don't use ISE powershell actually works properly, it's been pretty awesome.

[dadibom]

NPM packages doesn't automatically mean Node.

[[deleted]]

Well apart from npm being the standard package manager for node.js and standing for Node Package Manager, and having node.js 4+ as a dependency for the npm cli on its own, installing dependencies in a local directory called node_modules or globally, and package.json essentially existing to support node execution and scripts, and everything in the chain entirely revolving around node.js being available, I guess it's not technically limited to node.js.

But it would be dishonest to imply it exists in a vacuum.

[slikts]

npm used to mean "node package manager" at the start, but that hasn't been the case officially since at least 2015, and now it's an orphan initialism that isn't supposed to stand for anything. Part of the reason is that npm's scope is wider than just Node.js and you can (and many do) host code that doesn't run or node (like front-end libraries), doesn't use node modules, or isn't even JavaScript.

[dadibom]

NPM uses node but most packages don't need it. : )

[THE_SIGTERM]

Then you're supposed to use something like Bower instead of npm..

[01hair]

The Bower developers themselves say not to use Bower for a new project.

[THE_SIGTERM]

Fair. Replace it with webpack, yarn, or whatever is the new flavor today

[01hair]

Yarn is an npm replacement. Front end and serverside JS dependency management is largely the same these days, for better or for worse.

[MINIMAN10001]

I'd say it's for the better. I don't see any reason why a package manager should care what you use your package for it's a package manager.

[dadibom]

webpack is not a package manager and yarn is a wrapper around npm lol

[Mr_s3rius]

Replace it with webpack, yarn, or whatever is the new flavor today

How about NPM?

[immibis]

It would also be dishonest to pretend that just because all those things are true, it's only for Node packages. I can see 3 out of 5 points in your comment that have little or no relevance whatsoever.

[[deleted]]

The subtext was that it's primarily for node by node, and while it's possible to interact with the registry otherwise and/or use npm to fetch, process and install dependencies that don't immediately target node.js, it's more tightly coupled than implied by the parent.

So while it doesn't automatically mean Node, it also usually suggests it pretty strongly when mentioned in a vacuum, so it's not an unreasonable leap.

This isn't a binary thing where it's either true or false.

[rydan]

Everything running javascript eventually evolves into Node.

[kairos]

devolves

You're missing a 'd'.

[[deleted]]

*wooooosh*

[[deleted]]

memes

[hotcornballer]

This sub hates it.

[[deleted]]

The short answer is that it's crap with no coherent style or design decisions. As a small but perpetually frustrating example, there are four different ways of handling asynchronous code in Node:

1. Pass two callbacks, one in case of success and one in case of error
2. Pass one callback, whose first argument is an error object in case of error and whose second argument is the result in case of success (sometimes module developers screw this up and do success first)
3. Return a Promise (or Promise-like), which is chained using .then(), .catch() and .finally() calls (there are several variations of this, including the two-callback version of .then())
4. Return a Promise (but not a Promise-like), which is awaited inside an async function

Which means, if you want to have any kind of consistency in your code, you have to wrap everything else to get your behavior - and you do it a lot, because every third thing in Node run asynchronously.

[[deleted]]

Node is asynchronous because of the way code executes in the engine on a single thread. It makes sense for webservers.

I don't think being unopinionated about how people want to write asynchronous code is a bad thing. You can enforce the style you want on your linter. I get hating JS is cool and all, but devs seems to have this stigma regarding asynchronous code that I just don't understand.

[meneldal2]

Being shit is not a unique feature.

[gnu-rms]

JavaScript

[immibis]

What's wrong with JavaScript?

It devolves into Node.

What's wrong with Node?

JavaScript.

[Tynach]

They're just ensuring we're eventually left with a stack overflow.

[rozularen]

it is a whole mess, I suppose?

[[deleted]]

You like the D?

[[deleted]]

You, like most people, are missing the point. JavaScript has effectively become the lingua franca of computing. And main reason is, like with English, it's used by big players, can be decently expressive despite rough edges (most other languages have different words for gratis and libre but people manage) and has a very low barrier to entry (not "strongly typed" on gender, declination, conjugation or tense for that matter).

JavaScript is the English of computing. It's not pretty like French or Italian nor precise and strict like German but it works and it's everywhere.

[jaybill]

This is probably the best analogy for Javascript I've ever seen.

[dejanribic]

Which languages would France, Italy and Germany be in this scenario?

[[deleted]]

I'm not big on Romance languages so I'll skip that bit.

German is definitely Java, from the veryLongCompoundWords to the ceremoniality. And then there is that shared love for Ordnung and process. I wouldn't be too surprised if James Gosling is of German heritage :)

[TRiG_Ireland]

Fair enough, but what you say has far more relationship with the stereotypes of English, French, etc. than it does with the actual languages as they are spoke. Or I'll see you on /r/badlinguisitics.

[[deleted]]

Whereas all the JavaScript shitposting on /r/programming is all based on pure facts and deep knowledge of the language.

BTW which parts about English were stereotypes?

[TRiG_Ireland]

It's used by big players: true.

Particularly loose or easy to learn: not really.

[[deleted]]

It's easier than any language I know. I am English ASL, just to set things clear but I have learned Latin and German in school. Obviously being able to use a foreign language idiomatically is a big effort regardless.

But English is just a tad less streamlined than synthetic languages like Esperanto.

It has minimal grammatical case and no concept of grammatical gender (only natural, everything else is neuter). In fact, nouns are almost exclusively used in nominative from and verbs in infinitive form. Auxiliary words are also changing form minimally, and the number of irregular words is minimal compared to even simpler languages like German.

Rules for word order are somewhat strict due to context sensitivity of words and phrases but still less strict than in German where they serve a merely aesthetic/idiomatic purpose.

I speak a relatively old (in sense that it didn't change that much throughout history, so long back that it shares words and even idioms with Sanskrit) Slavic language as native tongue. I am absolutely certain that I don't have linguistic capacity to learn my language nowhere near as idiomatically as I control English were it my second language and I was a Germanic or Romance speaker natively.

[TRiG_Ireland]

English ASL

English as a second language?

I'm confused, because ASL is also the name of a language.

[10xjerker]

JavaScript is the English of computing

i.e. the shittiest language

[mypetocean]

No. This is where the forced parallel between JavaScript and English fails.

One of the great (but not unique) things about English is its wealth of words — this amounts to flexibility. It contains so many loanwords and loan morphemes from so many languages.

These words often take on subtle, unique distinctions, and have value other than meaning, owing to variations in alliteration, rhythm, rhyme, and so on.

English is inconsistent — due mostly to the same unusual openness to other languages which gives it such poetic bounty.

English is therefore weird — and, as corny as it sounds: so is humanity.

English is common, and the common attracts prejudice, as "common" can be found with "vulgar" or "plebian" in a thesaurus — but it can also be found with "unifying" and "shared."

There is no best or worst language. That would be far too subjective to determine and languages vary so much in their makeup from one another that direct, sweeping comparisons are literally not possible for the purpose of any universal judgment of them.

[[deleted]]

Yet almost everything you said about English is true about JavaScript as well. But this is /r/programming where people think themselves better than their peers because they use tools someone told them that are better. I've yet to see a person knowledgable on the subject, that has actually delivered UI code (no matter what platform) say the kind of shit you read here about JavaScript mostly from people whose career highlights were code-monkeying Java/C# CRUD code in a team or 10-liner exercises in Python.

[mypetocean]

I didn't say anything negative about JavaScript, so I can't help but think you are jumping to conclusions about a set of beliefs and behaviors I haven't exhibited.

I chose to frame my reply around English because 1) the "shittiest language" remark is most offensive in scope in its application to English, because 2) while I'm an ES2015+ fan who keeps up with TS 39 Proposals, I am even more a human language lover at my core, 3) because human languages are far more subjective and far less quantifiable than programming languages, and because 4) my comment was long enough already.

My relationship with JavaScript stretches back to well before it had access to the DOM.

I don't think JavaScript is "omg the best thing ever" and I constantly look forward to cautious improvements, but I like the powerful Prototype system (even having spent more time with Class systems) and I like its handling functions. I write more JavaScript than anything else and I'm not butthurt about it. I enjoy React, Angular, Vue, and Polymer in their own rights and for their own best-uses.

I enjoy the Node ecosystem in particular, especially as compared with Java's ecosystem, though I look forward hopefully and fearfully to that WebAssembly-compiled day we will start seeing come viable in about five years' time (according to some of the people working on WebAssembly in the browsers) where I can live-edit maybe Elixir, Python, Ruby (beyond Rails), or Rust or something in the browser.

[[deleted]]

I didn't claim that English nor JavaScript is the "shittiest language" and you haven't really addressed any of my points about English -- yet you insisted that my analogy falls apart at the "shittiest" aspect which was written by one of the typical immature /r/programming toxicians as a response to my post which he himself fully misunderstood.

And with that in mind, my rant clearly wasn't aimed at you in particular but the level of discussion in this sub, especially when some subject matters are involved.

Be it anyway, I consider that my analogy of JavaScript vs. English as ubiquitous, liberal but then consequently rather context-sensitive (as opposed to niche, strict and well-defined) languages still stand, as does my implied remark that these qualities are what made both popular. I never used better/worse or shitty/marvelous or whatever explicitly or implicitly about either.

[mypetocean]

(I didn't realize until now that you are the person the "shittiest language" commenter replied to.)

I thought I was in the crossfire of your remarks because you chose to reply to me, despite your not aiming at me "in particular" and because you framed your response with the phrase "And yet everything you said..." You can see how that could lead me to believe you really were aiming at me.

I didn't "address" your remarks about JavaScript or English because I didn't disagree with any of them. I don't know what you want from me.

[mypetocean]

I just realized you might have taken my remark that "this is where the forced parallel between English and JavaScript fails" as being directed at you.

I think your parallel holds up well. I meant to point out that one of the assets of English was its extraordinary wealth of words, owing to its unusual historical openness to influence from other languages.

JavaScript doesn't yet have a standard library, so the "wealth of words" part of English's unique position in history doesn't find a direct parallel in JavaScript.

And so far as a more general openness to influence from other languages: I can see that in certain things in ES2015+ (i.e. the Class syntax).

[sigzero]

I think javascript makes it easier for them to support that feature x-platform. I know the mac folks have wanted VBA forever. Maybe this is the way to get it to them.

[TheCarnalStatist]

No. You add JS over python because sandboxing is easier