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Re: ECMAScript in general

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Stefan Ram wrote:

>   1.) Change
> 
>   ECMAScript, Java, and C++ have at least one thing in common:
> 
>   In the Zero Years, they all did not change very much.
> 
>   But now, they are changing rapidly.
> 
>   Is this some kind of "mega trend"? Why?

All languages, natural and artificial, continuously adapt to the needs of 
their users.  IMHO, innovation speed in software development, particularly 
with regard to the Web, is increasing.  So it is not surprising that this
is reflected in programming languages.  

Also, one must consider the influence that programming languages have on 
each other.  ISTM that there is a competition between programming languages 
to meet the needs of their users so that they would not use another 
programming language instead that meets their syntactic needs better.  And 
the number of programming languages is only increasing.

For example, I find that ECMAScript has been influenced in recent years by 
Python (Object.keys(), Object and Array decomposition, generators, 
iterators), Java (classes and, in TypeScript, generics), and C# (anonymous 
function expressions/lambdas with arrow syntax); block scoping as introduced 
with JavaScript 1.7, then standardized in ECMAScript 2015 (ES 6), is the 
default in all of the aforementioned influences.

From my 2012 BSc thesis (where the most recent final Edition of ECMAScript 
that I considered was Edition 5.1 of 2010):

,-<http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix/application/doc/thesis.pdf>
| 
| […]
| 
| 5.3. Ausblick
| 
| ECMAScript und seine Implementierungen werden ständig weiterentwickelt und
| gewinnen stetig an Bedeutung nicht nur im Web-Umfeld. Neue Features werden
| den Sprachen hinzugefügt, alte fehlerträchtige oder mit Sicherheitsrisiken
| behaftete entfernt. Insbesondere für Mozilla JavaScript kann die Übernahme
| von neuen Features aus anderen Programmiersprachen, wie z. B. Python,
| beobachtet werden.
| 
| […]

Quick translation:

“5.3. Outlook

ECMAScript and its implementations are being improved continuously and 
continue to gain importance not only in the Web environment.  New features 
are being added to the languages; old, error-prone features and those that 
are fraught with security risks are being removed.  Especially for Mozilla 
JavaScript one can observe the introduction of features known from other 
programming languages such as Python.

[…]”

(Details can be found in the preceding sections.)
 
>   For one example: The JDK (Java) contained an ECMAScript
>   implementation ("Rhino", then "Nashorn"). It'll be removed in
>   Java 11, because ECMAScript changes just too much and too
>   fast, and it is too much effort to update Nashorn accordingly.

Cite evidence.
 
Rhino is simply Mozilla Foundation/Corporation (Mozilla)’s ECMAScript 
implementation in Java.  (SpiderMonkey is Mozilla’s [formerly: Netscape 
Communication Corporation (Netscape)’s] ECMAScript implementation in C/C++, 
which is used in widely distributed products of Mozilla 
Foundation/Corporation, and fork projects thereof, such as Mozilla Firefox, 
and Thunderbird).  Together they constitute Mozilla JavaScript.

<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/SpiderMonkey>
<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/Rhino>
<http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix#timeline>

Nashorn (German for “rhino[ceros]”) is something else: Oracle Corporation 
(Oracle)’s ECMAScript implementation in Java, first announced in 2011-07, 
confirmed in 2011-10, and source code publicly released in the OpenJDK 
repository in 2012-12:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashorn_(JavaScript_engine)>

In 2010, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, Inc., inventors of Java and (by 
the 1995-12 agreement with now-disbanded Netscape) owners of the 
“JavaScript” trademark (so it is now owned by Oracle):

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation#Acquisition_of_Sun_Microsystems>

(As for the latter, see also subsection “2.1.2.2. Name” of my 2012 BSc 
thesis, and references therein.)

>   2.) TIOBE
> 
>   TIOBE is often criticized, but I have observed that other
>   statistics of programming-language proliferation often agree
>   with TIOBE. However, when it comes to ECMAScript ...
> 
>   TIOBE places JavaScript on position 7, with "2.495% -0.53%".
>   This seems off. Lemme quote another source:
> 
>   Translated
> 
> |JavaScript is probably the most used as well as the most
> |liked programming language
> 
>   Original
> 
> |JavaScript ist wohl bei den meistgenutzten als auch bei den
> |beliebtesten Programmiersprachen vorne
> 
> heise.de/-3661355
> 
>   The truth must be somewhere in the middle between "2.495%"
>   and "most used"!

Consider the TIOBE (“The Importance of Being Earnest”) Index methodology:

,-<https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/programming-languages-definition/>
| 
| Since there are many questions about the way the TIOBE index is assembled,
| a special page is devoted to its definition. Basically the calculation
| comes down to counting hits for the search query
| 
| +"<language> programming"
| 
| In the next few sections it is explained what search engines qualify, what
| programming languages qualify and how the ratings are exactly calculated.
| […]

From my experience, I find it likely that fewer people would publish about 
“javascript (programming)” and “ecmascript (programming)” than, for example, 
“jquery (programming)”, “react (programming)”, or “node.js (programming)” – 
libraries and technologies that depend on ECMAScript implementations 
(“Node.js® is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript 
engine.” – <https://nodejs.org/en/>).

Also, consider how many programming languages there are and, therefore, how 
close the percentages are.  The current figures are:

,-<https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/>
| 
| Jun 2018   Jun 2017   Change   Programming Language   Ratings   Change
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------
|  1          1                  Java                   15.368%   +0.88%
|  2          2                  C                      14.936%   +8.09%
|  3          3                  C++                     8.337%   +2.61%
|  4          4                  Python                  5.761%   +1.43%
|  5          5                  C#                      4.314%   +0.78%
|  6          6                  Visual Basic .NET       3.762%   +0.65%
|  7          8         ↑        PHP                     2.881%   +0.11%
|  8          7         ↓        JavaScript              2.495%   -0.53%
|  9          -         ↑↑       SQL                     2.339%   +2.34%
| 10         14         ↑↑       R                       1.452%   -0.70%
| […]

Those are just a few reasons why one should not ascribe too much importance 
to the TIOBE Index.

-- 
PointedEars
FAQ: <http://PointedEars.de/faq> | <http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix>
<https://github.com/PointedEars> | <http://PointedEars.de/wsvn/>
Twitter: @PointedEars2 | Please do not cc me./Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.	

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Re: ECMAScript in general Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2018-07-07 08:38 +0200

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