A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no library used

Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by jlgreco on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @03:34PM (#6728263)

Imagine if management had not vetoed non "Java-like" syntax's during javascripts creation. Maybe Brendan Eich could have gotten a decent scheme dialect into the browser instead, people could have learned it (because in hypothetical retrospect, what else were they going to do? Not learn it?), and we would be in a far more pleasant position today...

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Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by pjc50 on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @04:03PM (#6728489)

Not learn it?

Certainly an option; keeping the syntax recognisable helped rather than hindered adoption, which was slow enough as it was at the beginning.

JS+DOM could have lost to Flash rather than vice versa.

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Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by jlgreco on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @04:24PM (#6728660)

If being "like java" was so important, then why didn't it just straight up lose to "actually java"?

I don't think that JS+DOM beating flash/java has much to do at all with "gee, this looks superficially like java, but is different enough to trip me up in rather weird ways".

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Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by davvolun on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @05:01PM (#6728922)

Don't conflate why Flash lost to why Java (in the browser) lost, there are very different reasons. For one thing, Java had failed as a browser plugin long before Flash did (as if we don't still see Flash in the browser...I wonder what our discussion would be if not for Apple?).

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Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @03:57PM (#6728445)

They would have learned whatever Java/C-derived scripting language that Microsoft came up with instead.

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Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by jlgreco on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @04:11PM (#6728559)

That was likely the fear at the time, but what we actually saw was Javascript became popular because it was useful and there wasn't really anything else like it. It became popular, so Microsoft threw in with it too.

In order for that to have not happened, it would have had to be so unpopular that Microsoft would decide it wasn't worth adopting, but still popular enough to get Microsoft on board with the general idea. I just don't think that is likely; people would have sucked up a scheme-based javascript even if it was a tad unfamiliar; it was that useful.

(Not to mention, going with the cynical "three E's" theory of 90s Microsoft, they would have at least first adopted it before perverting it.)

I think people overplay the importance of being C-like. AutoLISP hit a bit earlier and found a very strong following in a non-programmer niche. People doing web development were already fucking around in HTML of course, so clearly they could wrap their heads around things over than curly braces.

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Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by TheZenPsycho on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @05:17PM (#6729060)

that is a weird and complicated take.

microsoft had visual basic in the browser, working like php works. that was microsoft's vision, which would have been the web if netscape didn't still have significant market share. IE had to implement javascript to be compatible with pages written for netscape.

simple as that. just microsoft's famous "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy at work.

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Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by jlgreco on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @08:13PM (#6729884)

Microsoft's famous "embrace/extend/extinguish" is why they would have followed Netscape in implementing even a scheme-like javascript. They wouldn't have skipped the first two E's just because it was scheme-like instead of java-ish.

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Re:A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript, no li... by TheZenPsycho on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @08:26PM (#6729930)

No, but perhaps there would not have been any pages written for netscape for IE to be compatible with.

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