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Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript

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On 18/07/2026 05:46, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> Mikko wrote:
>> On 24/04/2025 04:52, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> Truthiness: yes, this is a pitfall, too. Languages should just take
>>> the Pascal route and insist that conditions be of Boolean type.
>>
>> Fortunatly conditions are usually in contexts that marks them as
>> conditions.
>>
>> One problem with many program languages is that the program does not
>> identify the revision of the standard.
> 
> What do you mean by that?

That reading the program text does not reveal what revision of the
standard did the programmer or programmer's or tester's compiler
or interpreter use.

>> This would be important with Javascript
> 
> There (still) is no "Javascript": <http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix>
> 
> [Granted, the feature list is not up-to-date anymore, and I am not sure if I
> will manage to update it -- I have so much else to deal with right now; but
> the basic argument that I presented there is still correct.]
> 
>> as the same program is intended for a large variety of
>> implementations that are not updated to the latest revision or are
>> aleady updated to a revision that is published after the publication
>> of the program.
>>
>> In Javascript there is the pragma "use strict".
> 
> In ECMAScript Ed. 5 and later, therefore in implementations of that.
> 
>> A similar pragma could be used to identify the revision expected to
>> be supported.
> 
> I think that you have a major misconception about ECMAScript and the
> landscape of ECMAScript implementations.
> 
>> In addition there should be a global constant or constants or function
>> that tells the revision acutally supported so that program can adapt to
>> what is available.
> 
> This is pointless because there is no implementtion that is fully compliant
> with any Edition of ECMAScript, and there are so many features that it is
> impossible to keep track of them.  It is better to test the features that
> one actually uses.  And eventually one has to decide which syntactical
> constructs one uses, considering that every syntactical construct sacrifices
> a bit of backwards compatibility.
> 
>> The subject line means that Javascript already existed 30 years ago.
> 
> Not "Javascript", but (Netscape) JavaScript, literally.

That's false, the subject line did not say "Netscape JavaScript".

>> In some sense that is false: the Javascript that we know today is
>> not the same as the Javascript 30 years ago.
> 
> You are the one who started with this false equivalence in the first place.

No, it already was on the subject line.

>> But it is true as much of what Javascript was 30 years ago
> 
> 30 years ago the nonsensical term "Javascript" that was introduced by people
> who were either too lazy or too uninformed did not exist yet.

The name was introduced with the release of Netsace Navigator in
December 1995.

>> is still present in the moders Javascript.
> 
> You do not know what you are talking about.  That probably comes from
> reading books by people who also do not know what they are talking about but
> present themselves as "gurus", like John Resig.

Much of what I said above is based on my experiences with various
programming languages, including old and new Javascript.

-- 
Mikko

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Thread

30 Years Of JavaScript Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-04-24 01:52 +0000
  Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi> - 2026-07-13 16:12 +0300
    Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-07-13 22:31 +0000
      Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi> - 2026-07-14 09:59 +0300
        Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-07-14 07:27 +0000
        Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2026-07-18 04:51 +0200
    Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2026-07-14 10:50 +0100
      Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-07-14 22:12 +0000
        Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2026-07-15 11:01 +0100
    Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2026-07-18 04:46 +0200
      Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi> - 2026-07-19 11:40 +0300
        Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-07-19 23:29 +0000
          Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi> - 2026-07-20 09:42 +0300
            Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-07-20 08:08 +0000
              Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi> - 2026-07-21 08:57 +0300
                Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-07-21 23:08 +0000
                Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi> - 2026-07-22 09:39 +0300
            Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2026-07-27 14:20 +0200
        Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2026-07-27 14:19 +0200
  Re: 30 Years Of JavaScript Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.eu> - 2026-07-13 14:46 +0000

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