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That is what most JavaScript haters sound like to me...
As an immature dev, I used to dis on COBOL. I worked with a COBOL developer on a VB app (yeah, go figure) who was left behind the times. He tried to explain "code 88s" (level 88 numbers) to me, and I was like "what the fudge". This dude was left behind and couldn't hang in the more modern world as all he knew was COBOL... this was about 20 years ago. Boy, did I feel superior... here I was all relevant and he's not. Clearly, COBOL must be a steaming pile of poo since it wasn't making sense.
Twenty years later, I did something called growing up -- sorta.** After studying the financial markets for a long time too, I've gained a better appreciation for context and history and where we came from to build up to today. Should devs stay modern? Yes. But, my disdain for COBOL more so stemmed from knowing nothing about it and its history and time and place, etc. and this guy who did nothing but format code all day that someone else wrote. As in, my reasoning was dumb, and a dev who uses COBOL and stopped learning is not the fault of COBOL itself. The more you know, the more you realize you don't know, after all.
If people want to know why I'm defensive of JavaScript? It's because 99.99% of the conversations I've had on CP about how JS sucks was by people who know little about it. I don't meet many JS experts here, but I do get the snickers, etc. I used to defend Macs on here twenty some-odd years ago for the same reasons. Despite their flaws like still using cooperative multitasking, just like 16-bit Windows did. But, don't you dare 'dis NTFS, despite the fact it was butchered in its early years... at least it fragmented less. Why, it's a bunch of Windows devs... of course they're gonna hate Macs (I don't love Macs at all now btw)... just because... yay tribalism.
Like when is enough, enough? Will programmers ever grow up? Why do we take 5 seconds to judge something and move on? When .NET first came out, I refused to use it because I wasn't going to use something that used an intermediate language (yes I know it compiles)... yet I do most of my work in JavaScript these days. Talk about irony. And yes, there objectionably better technologies than others (sometimes crap does suck), but the rationale I usually see for deeming good or bad is tenuous at best (I'm being nice here).
I could give more instances, Vulkan/WebGPU vs OpenGL/WebGL, etc. but y'all get the idea. Why can't we not have an opinion on something we know little about?
** @Marc-Clifton might disagree. 
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: Why can't we not have an opinion on something we know little about?
Because we all like to think we do know something about it. And if we don't like someone's opinion it does not automatically mean that ours is better. I had a fairly long spat with someone a couple of years ago about the UK's decision to leave the EU. He believed one thing and I believed the opposite. In the end he got rather up tight about it and I haven't heard from him since. But I still respect his right to that belief.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: Because we all like to think we do know something about it. And if we don't like someone's opinion it does not automatically mean that ours is better.
Agreed, but I wish more people didn't think their opinion was better. It's been my experience they do.
Richard MacCutchan wrote: But I still respect his right to that belief.
You're a better man than I am then.  These days I've kinda lost patience, when it comes certain things.
Jeremy Falcon
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Ask my wife about my levels of patience. 
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I had lots of those arguments/conversations/rows about leaving the EU still have an occasional one just to keep my hand in 
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: Why can't we not have an opinion on something we know little about?
Am reminded of an incident a few decades back, in India, with a renowned Physics professor, and a traditionalist (read ancient Indian tradition).
The Physics Professor was giving a public lecture, and routinely mentioned that tradition is all incorrect. In the audience was this long practitioner of tradition, and he got up and said openly that "Your physics is incorrect". The Physics Prof got angry, and here is the conversation that ensued in that lecture hall.
Physics Prof: Do you know the history of physics, where so many great physicists have discovered facts. How can you say that Physics is incorrect. You are unscientific. You don't have a scientific bent of mind. You don't understand Physics. You have not studied Physics, and have no right to comment on Physics.
Traditionalist: You say that you are a scientist. From what I know, Science has these steps - Theory, Experiment, Observation and Inference. Yes, I agree that Physicists have propounded theories about Mechanics, Heat, Acoustics, Optics, Electricity, etc. and have done experiments, made observations and only then have they made inferences about the theory propounded. And you have studied all of this, and done experiments, made observations, over several years/decades.
Traditionalist (continuing): Now, coming to my tradition, what theories have you studied? What experiments have you done, and what are your observations? Without doing any study, experiment or observation, how could you jump to the Inference stage and conclude that "My tradition is incorrect"? You have not studied the scriptures about tradition.
Traditionalist (continuing): Did it not occur to you to apply your own scientific principles in the study of tradition also? Having spent none or very little time in the study of Theory of tradition, having not even attempted any Experiment, without any Observation, how can you adversely comment in a public forum about tradition? Did you give yourself the right to do so? You are not a real scientist. If you are merely expressing your opinion, then it is not science, if it has no backup of theory, experiment, or observation, because it is not based on facts. In fact, it is you, the so-called Physics Professor, who is not having a scientific bent of mind. A real scientist should have an open mind about all fields of enquiry, and should have no prejudices or biases against anything. Yes, I intentionally said that "Your Physics is wrong", but only to show your absence of logic, scientific thought, scientific temper. I have spent years, decades, and have done serious enquiry, questioning about my tradition, consulted several experts, and have done several assessments about it; of which you have not even an idea.
The Physics Professor could not reply.
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The truth usually lies in the balance what has been and what is yet to be. Like, historically we used to bleed people who had a disease. Turns out that's really not a good thing. But, there are things that did work that we lost. For instance, it doesn't take a genius to realize processes foods and profit over substance in our food supply takes its toll. But, that won't stop commercials from advertising filth like it's yummo. It won't stop doctors from rarely considering food intake as part of the diagnosis. Let's just spray some more chemicals with no real studies and insult anyone who disagrees, despite not knowing the difference between a carb and a Cadillac.
So, it's a balance. Sometimes getting rid of the old is good; sometimes it's not.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: But, that won't stop commercials from advertising filth like it's yummo.
There's a saying in my house, "They would feed us rat poison if they thought they could get away with it."
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote: There's a saying in my house, "They would feed us rat poison if they thought they could get away with it."
Nobody on blood thinners, then?
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Why do you ask? Is rat poison chemically related to blood thinners?
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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A product called Warfarin - Wikipedia[^] is used for both purposes.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Amen to that.
Jeremy Falcon
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I do agree with what your saying but had to point out ...
Bloodletting is not totally garbage. My family carries a gene for a deadly disease for which phlebotomy aka bloodletting is the prescribed treatment. (Hemochromatosis: a build up of too much iron in the blood and tissues causing serious major organ damage)
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors - and miss.
Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" by Robert A. Heinlein
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Didn't know that. Touché 
Jeremy Falcon
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I don't know what the traditionalist was asserting, but it is up to those who make assertions to provide evidence for them.
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Whatever assertions were made by the traditionalist, he was equipped with the theory, experiments (some of these studies and experiments take many years to do, and have strict experimental conditions to be fulfilled) and personal observations, leading to the inferences made. Whereas the physics professor knew no such theory, had done no experiments or made observations about this traditional field, but was just giving his opinion; which did not display a scientific mindset.
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Do you know this for a fact, or are you just swallowing what the traditionalist said because he said it?
Just a thought....
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I know this for a fact, because I have seen this Physics Prof, and sat through his sessions, where he used to make remarks on things he was having only hearsay kind of knowledge. (He is not alive anymore, so I will not name him).
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Forgive me, but hearing something said by someone else doesn't make it a fact. The history of science is littered with mistakes by scientists who were adamant that they were right about something, when it later turned out they were completely wrong.
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I hope he listened though
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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The only language I have flat out refused to use (project/app level) has been PHP. 
As for JavaScript haters, my only guess is that they haven't used it very long. I had to learn it 20 years ago when browser compatibility/lack of standards was a big thing. There was no intellisense. Debugging was painstakingly done through alerts. The language was still fairly new and needed work. By contrast, writing JavaScript today is a breeze and it pretty much works everywhere. There is also a wealth of examples for doing just about anything you can think of.
That said, the wild-west nature of JavaScript may not come naturally to some developers. It may not make sense why 1+2=12. Learning to tame and understand the beast takes time and many don't have the patience...there's got to be a layer/framework that makes it easier right?
I've been using JavaScript for over 20 years and am constantly amazed at what can be done with it. What's to hate?  I don't love it, but it gets the job done reliably. I've even used it to script itself which is pretty cool.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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kmoorevs wrote: The only language I have flat out refused to use (project/app level) has been PHP.
I used to love me some PHP though, despite its design flaws. The original author already said PHP suffered from its quick popularity. By the time he wanted to fix some design flaws, compatibility became a real issue. But, the level of functionally you get with it, it was very hard to beat for the longest time. Things change though. IMO people shouldn't be starting new projects in it. But, even people that don't use it, need to learn to appreciate it. Without PHP there would be no ASP since Microsoft just copies. And without ASP there would be no ASP.NET. Which is my point, I wouldn't use COBOL either, but I can respect its time and place and what it did for the world in its moment of glory.
kmoorevs wrote: As for JavaScript haters, my only guess is that they haven't used it very long. I had to learn it 20 years ago when browser compatibility/lack of standards was a big thing. There was no intellisense. Debugging was painstakingly done through alerts. The language was still fairly new and needed work. By contrast, writing JavaScript today is a breeze and it pretty much works everywhere. There is also a wealth of examples for doing just about anything you can think of.
Yeah, exactly. I don't see that as a fault of the language though. Most scripting languages don't have a proper environment like that. I don't see PowerShell having that (nothing against PS), for instance. But, JS has grown up... way more than most people realize. It's its own category of scripting language now.
kmoorevs wrote: Learning to tame and understand the beast takes time and many don't have the patience...there's got to be a layer/framework that makes it easier right?
Amen brother, I've seen too much of this. I mean, it happens in other languages too, but given the non pre-compiled nature of JS it's more important to learn the language and keep up to date with it. Like, you don't need Underscore anymore. It had its time, and that has also passed.
JavaScript's wild-west side, suffers the same issue as PHP. It's very popular and has a low barrier to entry. That means any average Joe or clown can "use it". Everyone thinks they're experts regardless if they are are not, and unfortunately with any popular language, like with dating... you gotta weed out the garbage.
kmoorevs wrote: I don't love it, but it gets the job done reliably. I've even used it to script itself which is pretty cool.
It's also fast too. It's literally the fastest scripting language out there. So much so, it belongs in its own class of scripting language. Its runtimes have been optimized so much over the years, given the fact it's the language of the client-side web, it's crazy how quick it is. Not that it will ever replace a compiled language and WASM will eventually replace JavaScript, but for a scripting language it's fast.
Jeremy Falcon
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Some bits of wisdom I have heard from my father or collected during the years:
- Something might be old, but it doesn't means it is obsolete or there is no profit of knowing it.
- Someone might be old and don't know about a new shiny thing, but it still has way more experience in life and in the work-world than you, do not underestimate it.
- Always respect everyone's knowledge, no matter how unrelated to your current task is. You might think a cleaning worker knows nothing, but get a broom and use it for hours everyday without hearing his advices... you wrists will for sure hurt in a couple of hours.
- Never disrespect a secretary or someone without "power", that person can still have a lot of "influence"
- Be careful which toes you step on today, that foot can kick your ass in the future.
- If someone starts complaining about something without any proper arguments, it has nothing to do with that something and way more to do with his feelings. Do not ask about the something nor start a discussion to defend it because there will be no rationality, just ask "how are you?" and show interest in his person.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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These are all wise, but then you get online and someone's like.... eff eff eff eff you... you ask "why"? Then they're like because you use the wrong keyboard. And these are grown "men" who never went outside. It's ok to piss them off, they're not going anywhere in life.
Jeremy Falcon
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