Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Martin Gregorie Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Javascript replacing Java? Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 11:55:12 -0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 59 Message-ID: References: <75947fa8-5d0c-415c-b2f1-78ccd38293a3@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 11:55:12 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="577c9530bd857c23caf6a280ecf7b398"; logging-data="30584"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+AXfeyeNsd5bqDW/gBJQlOGlgOp/JJ7dI=" User-Agent: Pan/0.141 (Tarzan's Death; 168b179 git.gnome.org/pan2) Cancel-Lock: sha1:gIiwrf4FCl22M6ypGxlhLacys8A= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:36622 On Sun, 14 May 2017 20:30:54 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote: > On 5/9/2017 4:41 PM, a.laforgia@gmail.com wrote: >> On Saturday, 6 May 2017 03:28:18 UTC+1, Arne Vajhøj wrote: >> [...] >>> They are typical used for different purposes. >> >> Clearly, you've never used NodeJS. > > I don't. > > But I must admit that I find it very difficult to see the relation > between: > 1) whether one has used node.js 2) whether one is aware that the > percentage of different usages (web > client side, web server side, smartphone app, desktop app, > non-web server side, batch oriented) are very different in Java and > JavaScript > >> JavaScript and Java might be very >> different but that does not mean anything. They are two general-purpose >> languages, and you can resolve the same problems with them. > > The implicit assumption you are making that because a language can do a > task, then it is as good as any other language for the task is > fundamental flawed. > > Different languages are have different strong sides and weak side. As a > consequence different tasks suggest different languages. In which case > it makes sense to train students in multiple languages that are > significant different. > Agreed. I had a brief tussle with JavaScript and gave up on it because: 1) I like strongly typed languages because I appreciate the compile-time error checking that these languages support. At the time I tried it, JavaScript seemed to have a policy of leaving all error detection until the flawed statement was actually executed. Of course, this has major implications for unit test coverage, but somehow I doubt that this is widely understood. Even awk, a traditional UNIX scripting language with a compile-and-go style of runtime interpreter has always been much better at error detection than JavaScript was in my experience. 2) I learn languages best by reading books but I was utterly unable to find even a barely adequate book on JavaScript. The O'Reilly book I eventually ended up with was one of their worst, little more than a recipe book for JavaScript fragments. It had no satisfactory description of the language constructs and syntax. Even comp.lang.javascript was unable to suggest a good book. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |