Hard-won lessons: Five years with Node.js

Re:Hard-won lessons: Five years with Node.js by eropple on Wednesday April 19, 2017 @11:09PM (#14153611)

So I felt this way until about...oh...a month ago. Because my JavaScript experience was mostly ES5. And ES5 is a roiling piece of shit that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. ES6, however? ES6 is tolerable. Getting it set up isn't as bad as you'd think and the language does as much as a Ruby or a Python in not shooting yourself in the foot. I'd trade async/await for actual threads, because I am capable of writing code with threads without hurting myself, but async/await are fine for get-it-out-the-door web services and that kind of thing. So I don't worry about it that much.

I'd still go reach for the JVM and languages like Java or Kotlin if I was going to be hammering on a piece of code on an everyday basis for two or three years. But in 2017 (and probably 2016, but 2017 was when I got to it), it just became good enough to get it out the door with.

(Regarding TypeScript: I feel like it's an incomplete thing and I'm happy that it exists, but for the stuff I use ES6 for I can hold the entirety of it in my head and I'm not worried about typing. For things that matter to me...well, I wouldn't be using ES6 in the first place.)

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Re:Hard-won lessons: Five years with Node.js by cookiecaper on Thursday April 20, 2017 @01:32AM (#14154220)

Sadly, I've been going through a similar experience after several commenters indicated that my complaints seemed to refer to "old" JavaScript and encouraged me to try ES6.

Between ES6 fixing [0] many of the day-to-day warts that made JavaScript a joke language barely suitable for scripting DOM elements and V8's complete obliteration of other dynamic VMs in speed, I am being forced to accept that JavaScript is maturing into a serious platform, and starting to gradually introduce Node.js into my workflow.

Just today I was discussing how hard it is to pull the stick out of my butt regarding JavaScript, but I think that the evidence is in favor of it. I'm having a strong impulse to try to use Dart instead just so I don't feel as dirty anymore.

[0] http://es6-features.org

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