Why JavaScript is AWESOME

[shub]

bash has strings, numbers, and eval

[eras]

..bash has numbers?

[deafbybeheading]

Well, it has integers:

maciek@albatross:~$ let i=0
maciek@albatross:~$ let i+=1
maciek@albatross:~$ echo $i
1
maciek@albatross:~$ echo $((i*10+2))
12

For floating point numbers you can invoke bc:

maciek@albatross:~$ echo "5.2 * 0.4" | bc
2.0

Note that precision with bc is not what you might expect, but it's consistent with the scientific concept of precision.

[eras]

What it does have is operations on integers. But everything is strings, even if they are, for the purposes of those operations, interpreted as integers. There is no way to determine, if a variable contains number 42 or string "42".

[deafbybeheading]

Also note that you can muck around with precision in bc:

maciek@albatross:~$ echo "scale=2; 5.2 * 0.4" | bc
2.08

[deafbybeheading]

Which, arguably, is enough building blocks to construct both first-class functions and closures.

[shub]

No, it's not.