Everytime I hear developers trash a language for this or that feature or more generally on its "elegance", it reminds me of the old debate people had over Mac being too controlling of what the user could do and PC with linux being the ultimate tool of freedom.
In the end what won?
The simplest, and the practical. With Linux inside it.
Thinking a new language will or should come and replace JS for frontend after it has been developed and continuously improved with the web for 20 years is just tiring. JavaScript has been polished, it is practical, it has a plethora of tools and ressources. Improve javascript if you want to improve things, stop creating new paradigm all the time.
I am quite happy that ES6 proved that JavaScript could become a very modern language although it is not strongly typed, tools like flow are filling the gap for now.
I personally think Swift ans JavaScript are the most elegant language.
And although I can see the beauty of functional programming - I dont see it being used widely or being very pratictal for frontend.
As for typescript, it is a very good formalisms but it is made better by the tools built around it.
I think JavaScript could go there on its own, no use having two languages in the long run.
Some key improvements it does need would be to formalize flow types, more integrated linear algebra tools (or C++ extensions like numpy/scipy), a way to transpile/compile to native apps that is more efficient than electron (although electron is the bomb), and that's it. The rest has to be the job of browser making companies to comply to new standards.
Developers always want to reinvent the wheel instead of submitting PRs and participating to the debate about the future of open projects as "participants". It's ok to "only" participate.
>it reminds me of the old debate people had over Mac being too controlling of what the user could do and PC with linux being the ultimate tool of freedom. In the end what won?
The simplest, and the practical. With Linux inside it.
Not sure what you mean. But Linux hasn't made any inroads to the desktop, and the fact that Android runs Linux is irrelevant as it's just an implementation detail (nothing Unicy is exposed to the users).
What won is Windows (still) and OS X (4-5 times more popular than in 1999 when everybody predicted "Linux on the Desktop").
In the end what won?
The simplest, and the practical. With Linux inside it.
Thinking a new language will or should come and replace JS for frontend after it has been developed and continuously improved with the web for 20 years is just tiring. JavaScript has been polished, it is practical, it has a plethora of tools and ressources. Improve javascript if you want to improve things, stop creating new paradigm all the time. I am quite happy that ES6 proved that JavaScript could become a very modern language although it is not strongly typed, tools like flow are filling the gap for now.
I personally think Swift ans JavaScript are the most elegant language. And although I can see the beauty of functional programming - I dont see it being used widely or being very pratictal for frontend.
As for typescript, it is a very good formalisms but it is made better by the tools built around it. I think JavaScript could go there on its own, no use having two languages in the long run. Some key improvements it does need would be to formalize flow types, more integrated linear algebra tools (or C++ extensions like numpy/scipy), a way to transpile/compile to native apps that is more efficient than electron (although electron is the bomb), and that's it. The rest has to be the job of browser making companies to comply to new standards.
Developers always want to reinvent the wheel instead of submitting PRs and participating to the debate about the future of open projects as "participants". It's ok to "only" participate.