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The tragedy of running an old Node project

(abdisalan.com)
272 points abdisalan | 15 comments | 18 Nov 24 18:24 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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uludag ◴[18 Nov 24 18:55 UTC] No.42175643[source]▶
The worst part isn't just that it's nearly impossible to run/update an outdated JS project, but that this process will repeat itself ad infinitum.

On the flip side, anything that uses vanilla JS without a build will most likely run just fine, probably till the end of human civilization.

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graypegg ◴[18 Nov 24 19:21 UTC] No.42175899[source]▶
I truly believe some flavour of "Javascript Classic" (some future state of JS before some big shift in syntax/mass migration to something else), C and x86 instructions will follow humanity for the rest of time. There will be javascript somewhere aboard the interstellar spaceships of the future, and we will still complain about it.
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1. peutetre ◴[18 Nov 24 23:05 UTC] No.42178137[source]▶
JavaScript will be killed off by WebAssembly.

Zombie JavaScript will be reduced to being glue code and then not even that.

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2. yen223 ◴[19 Nov 24 10:22 UTC] No.42181884[source]▶
JavaScript will be killed off by webassembly for about 5 years now
replies(1): >>42181901 #
3. peutetre ◴[19 Nov 24 10:25 UTC] No.42181901[source]▶
The difference lately is the number of tools that are now in place for WebAssembly development and the new extensions to WebAssembly (WasmGC, Memory64, etc.).

Despite 28 years of effort at optimization, JavaScript is outperformed by WebAssembly. There's not much coming back from that:

https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-vi...

https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-...

https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc

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4. liontwist ◴[19 Nov 24 15:07 UTC] No.42184200{3}[source]▶
?? JavaScript was outperformed by every language since it was introduced.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is what people put in their web pages.

replies(1): >>42187768 #
5. spacebanana7 ◴[19 Nov 24 16:27 UTC] No.42185231[source]▶
Network effects are very strong for languages.

Better query languages than SQL could exist, but there's so much existing code and expertise out there that it's not worth the effort. Better backend languages than Java can & do exist but don't have the same enterprise popularity.

Developers, projects and companies have an immense incentives to target the most popular programming language.

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6. yoelhacks ◴[19 Nov 24 19:41 UTC] No.42187303{3}[source]▶
Javascript is outperformed by WebAssembly in the sense that it runs faster.

A lot of things that bring a lot of value to a lot of people are still much, much faster to build via the JS / TS ecosystem.

It absolutely makes sense that calculation-heavy workloads will be ported to WASM, but there's a lot more to building an app.

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7. peutetre ◴[19 Nov 24 20:29 UTC] No.42187768{4}[source]▶
But now JavaScript is no longer the privileged language in the browser.

With WebAssembly every language runs in the browser and runs better.

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8. peutetre ◴[19 Nov 24 20:38 UTC] No.42187848[source]▶
JavaScript's one advantage was that it was the privileged language in the browser. It has lost that now.

JavaScript has entered its Walking Dead phase. It will gradually be displaced by all languages compiling to WebAssembly.

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9. peutetre ◴[19 Nov 24 20:41 UTC] No.42187869{4}[source]▶
> but there's a lot more to building an app.

Like what? Visual UI designers? WebAssembly's got you covered: https://platform.uno/blog/uno-platform-studio-featuring-hot-...

Running Visual Basic in a C# application compiled to WebAssembly? Sure, why not: https://bandysc.github.io/AvaloniaVisualBasic6/

10. liontwist ◴[19 Nov 24 20:51 UTC] No.42187950{5}[source]▶
And what will prove that is adoption. As others have said, that has been “just around the corner” for years.
11. spacebanana7 ◴[19 Nov 24 22:27 UTC] No.42188771{3}[source]▶
JavaScript’s main advantage is being commonly familiar to most software engineers.

The English language similarly lost its position as the preeminent imperial language a long time ago, so too with Latin & Rome. It takes a long time for a popular language to die because everyone wants to speak what everybody else speaks.

12. NohatCoder ◴[19 Nov 24 22:33 UTC] No.42188808[source]▶
The Webassembly dev experience is awful, and it needs to be glued together with JavaScript anyway. 99% of web code doesn't care about the performance difference, and anything GUI is wasting more time jumping back and forth to JavaScript to save any time at all.
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13. em-bee ◴[19 Nov 24 23:01 UTC] No.42188993[source]▶
only after they make DOM access easier. see previous discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955585

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955488

14. peutetre ◴[19 Nov 24 23:30 UTC] No.42189203[source]▶
> The Webassembly dev experience is awful

It really isn't. Wasm is just a compilation target now.

15. saulpw ◴[20 Nov 24 08:34 UTC] No.42191854{3}[source]▶
WASM has a lot of shortcomings. You can't even update the DOM without doing a worker dance.