I struggle with a couple different tools that were developed in weeks or a couple months or on a plane ride.
Every time these guys brag about how quickly they put together the first version I just want to say to them, "yeah, we can all tell. And every day we suffer for it."
Yes. There's just no substitute for time. It's impressive to see something put together quickly, but the result is inevitably lacking in some (or more) ways.
In this talk, I couldn't decide whether his saying JS was written in ten days was a rueful admission that it's only natural for it to be a huge pile of shit, or some self-aggrandizement based on how quickly he managed to write it. I always found JS rather tasteless, so, naturally predisposed to think somewhat uncharitably of its author, I'm going to assume it's self-aggrandizement. This might be a bit rude of me, but if it's OK to rush out JS then slowly make it ever so slightly better over the next 20 years, then I think it's OK for me to form my opinions in the same manner ;)
Hume's Guillotine slices again! Please think through this keynote at a conference. I was asked to talk about the early days of JS. Why do you suppose that I am aggrandizing by describing "is" (or "was") as if "ought" can be derived in a moral sense?
JS happened, I made it in ten days because it wouldn't have happened otherwise. Had I thought it through, I might have insisted on more time -- but then: VBScript.
We don't get to call these shots. Taste and morality have little to do with their hitting targets (whether the ones we aimed at, or others). All the good stuff in JS came from giants on whose shoulders or heads I stood.
I'm not a nihilist or materialist, but I have to laugh after 20 years. JS was not planned out this far in advance!
Anyhoo, my sense of self does not depend on ten days in May 1995. My work on the Web, not just JS but especially on Mozilla, Firefox, and HTML5, doesn't need aggrandizement. My best work has yet to be seen. I'm not doing these talks to boast. Peace.
Just ignore the trolls, most of these naysayers have never implemented a new programming language in their life, but they feel entitled to talk about taste and morality.
I think Brendan is trying to apologize for those mistakes, a brave face on the embarrassment of 20/20 hindsight, mixed with some pride in the parts he got right.
He is now spending a huge amount of time trying to fix his mistakes, so perhaps he suffers more than most...
Every time these guys brag about how quickly they put together the first version I just want to say to them, "yeah, we can all tell. And every day we suffer for it."