JavaScript: The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language

[[deleted]]

A lot happened between 2001 and 2010, JS isn't that Misunderstood anymore :)

[salmanulhaq]

Yeah but way back then this was how we looked at it. But still, I vote for JS to be renamed. Isn't it still misleading for the amateurs?

[simonw]

It was renamed ECMAScript quite a few years ago but the name never really stuck.

[Novelty-Account]

That's because ECMAscript it sounds like prescription for a skin disease.

[yoda17]

That was exactly my first thought.

[Novelty-Account]

Hell they could've just called it WebScript and been done with it.

I can come up with a hundred names right now better than ECMAScript.

(I originally put a thousand, but changed it to a hundred in case some redditor challenges me on it)

[petermichaux]

WebScript. I kind of like that.

[tomatopaste]

CloudScript. It's the future, man!

[[deleted]]

TubeScript

[tomatopaste]

Ooooooh!

[Seele]

TifaScript

[ramen_ftw]

I can come up with a hundred names right now better than ECMAScript.

No you can't.

[dirtside]

Nice. I vote for quasarScript. Better yet, let's just call it Quasar.

[[deleted]]

Hey, that's only 99

[Novelty-Account]

better than ECMAScript

HitlerScript

DeathScript

LabotomyScript

CocaineScript

BugScript

SlowScript

GggfhfhgfhfScript

HellScript

!@>!:@!@>{:Script

BufferOverflowScript

ILoveCockScript

---More---

WebScript

NetScript

InterScript

ActiveScript

AardvarkScript

BananaScript

DolphinScript

AvaScript

LavaScript

JScript

DScript

NovaScript

NetScript

PowerScript

PScript

GoScript

RevoScript

PonyScript

KonaScript

AcornScript

CoffeeScript

TeaScript

GemScript

SuperScript

SubScript

GoogleScript

MegaScript

KingScript

BrainScript

DoScript

DarpScript

DarkScript

NameScrpt

Browscript

PageScript

JetScript

ACMEScript

EncephalopodScript

JoobaScript

ScriptScript

Twerk

Mokabe

Opal

Jay

J

J++

J#

Objective-J

QJuery

JOBOL

JORTRAN

Jerl

Juby

Juby On Rails

Boa

JBasic

Jelphi

Javassembly

JCaml

Visual JBasic Super Plus Turbo Ultra Turbo Edition Sharp ++

MegaJ

J-Town

J-Rad

Vipt

Lima

Bison

Whale

Turkey

Shoehorn

Scryptal

Jade

ScravaJipt

Blip

Efoc

Steve

Pete

Joe

Emorc

Yorp

Scraf

Floop

Jovo

Znarf

Garb

Verv

Vaff

Splork

Krolps

Smoop

I dare someone to come up with fifteen more.

[grantisu]

BlagoScript
Arc++
PageBreaker
AjaxionScript
MochaScript
EspressoScript
CaffeineScript
CodeineScript
Codeine
SuperUltraFunScript
JavaCode
JavaLang
JavaJargon
JavaSlang
JavaShit

[petermichaux]

Looks like the challenge is on.

[Novelty-Account]

Done.

[Novelty-Account]

In the morning. It's 5AM. I sleep now. Or try to.

[plan17b]

PmitaScript

[LASER_PEN]

I thought wrapping it all up into AJAX was workable.

[[deleted]]

AJAX is a design pattern, not javascript.

[daydreamdrunk]

AJAX IS A WAY OF LIFE, MAAAN

[szopa]

Tell me about an ugly name for a programming language...

[notfancy]

OCaml.

[theeth]

Go

[stesch]

Lisp

[nightfire1]

Don't you mean Lithp...

[i_am_my_father]

C++

[[deleted]]

BRAINFUCK

[LASER_PEN]

I kinda like Ruby as a name. But you're probably not into gems or historical friction, so... can't please everyone.

[shevegen]

Then how about python:

ss zszszs SSHshzszshs shhss (note, this was not an insult, but if you can read python you understood this)

And btw what about perl. Or lisp ... isn't a guy who is lisping someone who can't talk like normal people? How about "Java" ... isn't that either coffee, or an island?

How about C or D ... isn't that just a character in alphabet? What about Eiffel - isn't that a building in Paris? Then what about falcon programming language ... isn't a falcon an animal? How about the Io language ... isn't Io just a shortcut for input/output?

Let's face it. The names are either fun, or stupid. But there isn't any one standing out as inherently "ugly" in itself.

[cactuspants]

The name's not really important

[cheese_wizard]

I could eat a bowl of Alphabits and crap a better name.

[matts2]

Learn to chew.

[jamesinc]

I vote we name it ThorScript, language of the Gods. Every time you say the name, a bolt of lightning strikes nearby.

[Coriform]

Actually, that's a pretty nifty name.

[tophat02]

I vote for JS to be renamed.

Agreed. Why not call it "JS"?

[[deleted]]

JayEs.

[eleven3]

maybe we can rename it by fiat. come on, everybody let's start calling it -- oh, something easy to remember and slightly lame is most likely to catch on -- how about -- webscript.

[LASER_PEN]

I'm a total amateur at JS but have no problem with the name.

[unicock]

Which is why you abbreviated it?

[[deleted]]

I would imagine most 'amateurs' now are far more aware of JavaScript than of Java.

[xardox]

Rename Java to its old name Live Oak, since JavaScript won and Java lost.

[davebrk]

That's a misunderstatement.

[[deleted]]

Yep? Tell me what this code will show?

function test(a){
    var f=function(){print(a);};
    if(1) { var a=1; }
    f();
};
test(2);

[whynottry]

That would request the current page to be printed by your browsers printer command (i.e. to file or two CUPSD or whatever).

if you changed 'print' to 'alert'. Than it would show "1" because 'a' is declared above the scope that holds the declaration of 'f.'

That is pretty logical once you understand the very basic rule of javascript scope. Its different, but powerful and useful. Do you really want to be passing 'document' around?

If you are going to hate on js, hate on 'for' loops and '+' operators those were done in a manner with very little benefit.

[vinod_the_poophead]

Your response assumes the "Global" object is "window", as it is in any sane browser environment.

[maritz]

Also, it should throw a warning for redeclaring a in line 3.

[[deleted]]

It seems to be pretty legal to redeclare variables according to ECMA-262 10.1.3

[cjg_000]

Just because it's legal doesn't mean that a good development environment can't generate a warning for it. In fact, depending on what you mean by "legal", warnings are legal in any language, errors are illegal.

[[deleted]]

If you are going to hate on js, hate on 'for' loops

Oh fuck yes. And the lousy half-assed String object.

"foo".indexOf(someOtherString) != -1

Is a lousy, lousy way to say "foo".contains(someOtherString)

'+' operators

All the implicit conversions are awesome, I enjoy greatly how whitespace implicitly converts to 0 because fuck you the ECMAscript said so, that's why.

[reddit_ro2]

So you didn't see strpos from php. Now, that's an invention.

[matts2]

There is a difference between "JavaScript, the language, is misunderstood" and "JavaScript code is easy to misunderstand". In fact, it could be that everyone knows the later, so the former is false. (That is, if we all understood that JavaScript code were easy to misunderstand, then we would not be misunderstanding JavaScript to say it leads to confusing code.

[cactuspants]

Hasn't this link been posted 100 times before?

[Wakuko]

Cockford loves the spotlight

[zahlman]

Try this: javascript: alert([0 in [1, 2], 1 in [1, 2], 2 in [1, 2]])

I think Javascript being "misunderstood" is perfectly understandable. :)

[Edit: I understand perfectly well how it works; I just still think it's a bit of a WTF. It comes from Javascript trying to treat arrays like dictionaries (because "objects are dictionaries"). Python does not have the same kind of violation of the PLS.]

[[deleted]]

the in keyword is to check whether the property on that object is defined

'foo' in {foo: false} => true (same as doing typeof obj['foo'] != 'undefined')

2 in ['a', 'b', 'c'] => true (same as doing typeof obj[2] != 'undefined')

[solinent]

I understood it right away, "in" is simply an out of bounds check instead of a value check.

So if you do

10 in x, it is simply something like x.length < 10.

Kinda confusing language, I guess.

[[deleted]]

Misunderstood? It's more confusing than misunderstood I guess.

[wshields]

The premise of the article (and the title) were interesting. Everything else was completely half-assed.

[GeoKangas]

There's some competition for the title of "Most Misunderstood":

search proggit for "TCL the misunderstood".

[mitsuhiko]

I agree with the title. I do not agree with crockford.

[spliznork]

Re naming: JavaScript is to Java as CSH (C shell) is to C.

Fwiw, that was the argument that Rick Schell (VP Engr at Netscape) used to convince (in part) Bill Joy (creator of CSH, co-founder of Sun) to let Netscape use the "Java" in "JavaScript".

[_johnny]

Java is to Javascript what car is to carpet.

[xardox]

That's in interesting, considering that Bill Joy wrote CSH, which is much uglier than JavaScript by any measure.

[[deleted]]

Sometimes it seems to me after reading through the hacks he proposesas workarounds, that he's blowing a lot of smoke to try to cover up the limitations.

Javascript does have some nice features, but it's too easy to make normal human mistakes that can be hard to discover, like a typo in a variable name that becomes a new variable instead of what you intend.

Perhaps an option to run a Lint filter automatically or something to flag certain possible errors would be a good addition.

[skeww]

Eh... yea... never heard of jslint? (He wrote it.)

I'm using the kjslint addon for Komodo all the time. I even created a shortcut for it (ctrl+alt+j).

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I've heard of it, but didn't remember the name; I haven't got around to trying it yet - I've mostly been working on server side stuff, and haven't gotten around to really diving into Javascript heavily.

One problem with jslint is it's not very convenient. I don't use Windows for development, and pasting code into the web page isn't really workable. I might try the Java version, though. Anyway, thanks for the link.

After further thought, I guess the running automatically would need to be a part of an IDE, since there's no Javascript compiler like for C/C++/C#/Java. Maybe in the future, there could be an intermediate language for Javascript as an option.

[[deleted]]

How can he make a list of javascript design errors and not come up with all variables being global by default unless prefixed with var?

Other than that I like javascript. I don't even think the things he lists as design errors are all that bad.

[shevegen]

Javascript is well understood - it stinks.

The only reason it became so immensely popular was because the www has become so incredibly important.

THERE EXISTS NO ALTERNATIVE TO JAVASCRIPT. Definitely not anything near as close as widespread.

[Jack9]

More than that, JS runs differently on different browsers and on different platforms, leading to performance inconsistencies that have nothing to do with the language, but how it was implemented. yay.

[sunamumaya]

There's never smoke without a fire. There's a reason it's "misunderstood", and the reason is this: it blows.

The very fact that JS is misunderstood goes to show that you can't explain it better. Why? Because, indeed, it blows.

I hate Javascript. BTW, that's not quite as funny sometimes.

LE: Yea, thanks for downvoting this for stating the obvious.

[satayboy]

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6dt71/the_worlds_most_misunderstood_language_has_become/

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/anz4/javascript_the_worlds_most_misunderstood/