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Skeptical of rewriting JavaScript tools in "faster" languages

(nolanlawson.com)
160 points todsacerdoti | 5 comments | 20 Oct 24 21:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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anyfoo ◴[20 Oct 24 21:54 UTC] No.41898802[source]▶
> I’ve written a lot of JavaScript. I like JavaScript. And more importantly, I’ve built up a set of skills in understanding, optimizing, and debugging JavaScript that I’m reluctant to give up on.

It's not that hard to do the same for a less terrible language. Choose something markedly different, i.e. a low level language like rust, and you will learn a lot in the process. More so because now you can see and understand the programming world from two different vantage points. Plus, it never hurts to understand what's going on on a lower level, without an interpreter and eco-system abstracting things away so much. This can then feed back into your skills and understanding of JS.

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FridgeSeal ◴[20 Oct 24 21:56 UTC] No.41898815[source]▶
I swear some JS devs will go out of their way to avoid learning anything else, whilst simultaneously and breathlessly espousing that we rewrite everything else in JS.
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tylerchilds ◴[20 Oct 24 22:04 UTC] No.41898856[source]▶
i swear some non js devs will go to extreme lengths to demonstrate solutions that will never run on another machine instead of writing js
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1. anyfoo ◴[20 Oct 24 22:06 UTC] No.41898873[source]▶
Why would they never run on another machine? It's not that hard to write portable code, and done very often. Nowadays for example, you rarely ever think about whether you're on arm or x86.

If you write non-portal code, there might be an important reason (like writing OS components, which you won't do in JS).

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2. tylerchilds ◴[20 Oct 24 22:58 UTC] No.41899172[source]▶
almost every time code doesn’t run on my machine, the root cause is a political disagreement with a c-compiler author three layers below my actual problem.

javascript doesn’t have a compiler is my main point.

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3. FridgeSeal ◴[20 Oct 24 23:11 UTC] No.41899272[source]▶
Bit rich to complain about that when all the major browsers have just as significant differences, and that’s before we bring node into the equation, let alone talking about a good 30% of websites I visit with any quantity of JS in them are either perpetually broken in some way, or so jank as to be effectively broken.
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4. tylerchilds ◴[21 Oct 24 03:02 UTC] No.41900318{3}[source]▶
totally agreed about all of the above and i take credit for none of that code

i write plaintext at uris, progressively enhance that to hypertext using a port with a deno service, a runtime that unifies browser js with non browser js.

that hypertext can optionally load javascript and at no point was a compiler required aside from the versioned browser i can ask my customers to inspect or a version of deno we get on freebsd using pkg install.

node is not javascript would be my biggest point if i had to conclude why i responded.

microsoft failed at killing the web with internet explorer and only switched to google’s engine after securing node’s package manager overtly through github and covertly through typescript.

microsoft is not javascript is my final point after circling back to my original point of microsoft is also one of the aforementioned reasoned c-compilers are politically fought over instead of things that just work.

5. wiseowise ◴[22 Oct 24 06:37 UTC] No.41911772{3}[source]▶
I encounter far more issues compiling C code than JS issues in the web, just saying.