Also, I think the idea that Javascript and HTML, languages designed specifically to markup and manipulate web documents, are the right tools for native app development is misguided as well.

I'm not saying JS doesn't have more general use constructs but HMTL/JS always feels like a strange, uncomfortable way to describe native UI. I guess what I'm saying is that you tend to feel the compromise.

In the end, I just think the language and tools used by the teams that build core apps for a platform will always beat those designed to abstract away what makes the platform special and compelling.

Both Android and iOS majorly use XML to describe layout, and constraint-based layout on both platforms is essentially flexbox (CSS).

Instead of a common standard we have 3 competing stacks.

Having developed several hybrid and native apps on both platforms, I can say that usually the worst layouts are done by devs with experience only in one platform. From a high level, it's easy to accomplish the same thing on all platforms, animations included. It would be a ton easier if they just would actually converge.

iOS does not use XML to describe layout.

Storyboards and xib files use XML as a serialization medium, but you never actually work with the XML directly, it's literally just an underlying file format and the only reason it's used over a binary format is to make VCS merge conflicts easier to deal with. And more importantly, the actual built iOS app does not contain XML. Instead the build process constructs the view hierarchy based on the storyboard/xib (just as the interface builder editor does) and then serializes that to a binary plist (this is why UIView and UIViewController conform to NSCoding).

JavaScript is the future. All devs should know the basics.

Javascript is the present, and only part of the present. It's completely irrelevant to my area of development.

I foresee JavaScript being with us for the next 20 years whether we like it or not. It is the language of the web. We may have transpilers of all sorts but it will always come down to JavaScript at the base.

Javascript may be around, as a compatibility layer at the very least. I tend to agree with the sibling comment, though: WASM at the base, compiled from Javascript (and just about every other language you could want). WASM isn't something you'd be likely to hand-code, it seems like.

None of that changes this fact for me: JS/ES is completely irrelevant to me as a development language. I've learned a bit and found portions reminiscent of a few other languages, but I don't really have a practical use for it, myself.

Nope. Replaced by WASM within 5.

That statement means we will all be using Web Assembly to manipulate the DOM...and then to do any scripting we will just be writing WASM? What am I missing here?

It's the future of parts of the web, not the future of everything.

All cyclists should know the basics, but nobody falts them for choosing not to ride a tricycle once they can choose between tricycles and bicycles. Or choosing to use a tractor trailer instead of a bike if that's what they need.

JavaScript is the foundational language of the web. You can't build anything reasonable on the web without JavaScript. As far as I can see it will be with us for at least another 20 years.

The web is not everything.

Boyancy is the foundational concept of naval transportation, but it's not the foundational concept of all transportation.

I used to think that* but began re-evaluating it when I found out how much of the world's population first computer is/was a smart phone. The inevitability of a language originally tied to a web browser optimized for desktop computers seems a whole lot less certain to me now.

[*] Not sure if I was right before or after, check back in a few years :)

I thought webassembly was the future?