Re:Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)
by Gunax on Friday December 04, 2020 @11:42AM
(#25304410)
Do you think it would be better if they did understand it?
You can be a Java dev for years (forever really) without understanding how the JVM works. I don't see why the web has to be any different.
Re:Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)
by ethbr0 on Friday December 04, 2020 @11:50AM
(#25304528)
"They" was intended to be the customers: the clients paying for development.
Ime, the less visibility and knowledge customers have into an implementation, the more opportunity there is for developers (especially contract) to go off the rails.
When the code behind "it works in my browser" is completely opaque... that doesn't set up the best technical incentives in the market. Past "minimize time-to-deliver".
Personally, I'd lay this at the "copy & paste, boot camp-trained" webdevs community's feet, along with their customers.
Js has an unfortunate ecosystem dynamic where its primary customers (I want to X on the web) don't understand it, so its primary developers don't have any standardization pressure (fragmentation / spaghetti at the wall), browsers are forced to enable this behavior via monkey patching standardization in presentation, so its end users (browser users) are oblivious to everything under the hood.
It's like the perfect storm of hidden sausage-making.