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A comment on Because It's Not Fun Enough: why languages fail. Parent comment

Re:Because It's Not Fun Enough: why languages fail by armchairhacker on Monday August 10, 2026 @09:01AM (#49243064)
I believe JavaScript's was running in the web where Java could not (iPhones) or was considered too heavyweight (no startup).

Then it became the true extremely portable language, because developers wanted a single language to write webapps in, and it was easier to get JavaScript running on their server than a new language running on every browser.

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Re:Because It's Not Fun Enough: why languages fail by Jtsummers on Monday August 10, 2026 @09:12AM (#49243180)
Javascript didn't need a plugin, unlike Java, and could directly alter the page contents. One of the first heavy uses was Google Maps, interactive JS-based applications took off at that point. Then with an army of web developers (meaning in browser), Node took off when it handed them a way to work on the backend in the same language.

The iPhone came out after JS heavy pages came into existence, and might have accelerated the end of Flash and Java applets but the trend was already there.

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Re:Because It's Not Fun Enough: why languages fail by oblio on Monday August 10, 2026 @10:19AM (#49244064)
Gmail was the original AJAX woah! JavaScript application.
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Re:Because It's Not Fun Enough: why languages fail by WalterSlovotsky on Monday August 10, 2026 @11:24AM (#49244928)
Somewhat ironic, since AJAX was originally created by Microsoft to implement the Outlook web client.
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Re:Because It's Not Fun Enough: why languages fail by oblio on Monday August 10, 2026 @11:49AM (#49245242)
Microsoft was early and late to lots of things. They dominated early smartphones, too.
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