[jchw]

I think that's neither here nor there. JavaScript has a lot of strengths that few other languages can claim at this point, thanks to how universal it is. Many people understand it, it can be used to build everything from desktop apps to mobile apps to servers, and it has one of the largest package repositories out there.

I'm far from a JS fanboy but I think your point lends credence to the idea of using JS more than it strengthens the use of Emacs Lisp.

[taeric]

I don't actually see the advantages for JavaScript. Seems every other month there is a new way to package it. So, everyone might know how to build with it, but few people know the same way of building.

Similarly, the package repository is not exactly inspiring. Similar patterns of many packages doing the same thing. Often not bringing new advantages to the table, so much as revising old weaknesses. Many rooted in choice of language.

Which is actually not too complain of JavaScript. I do like it. And I love that people are empowered to try things. Even if they were previously done. I do wish people knew more options, though. Including myself.

[jchw]

Trust me, I get it. I'm not a fan of JS for the exact stated reasons. It's fragmented and full of holes.

But the way I see it, JavaScript is like today's BASIC. In a very fragmented computer market, it seemed like BASIC was the one thing that ran common between a lot of home computers in the 80s. While it's not a perfect parallel, it seems with all of the different platforms that are around today it's hard to find a consumer platform that doesn't have a JavaScript interpreter jammed in it, be it an iPhone or a ChromeCast.

BASIC wasn't all sunshine and rainbows either, but it was more than enough to help unify a fragmented world. I think JavaScript is very similar in that respect, and when the dust starts to settle on modern JavaScript it will be closer to accomplishing that goal.

Whether or not NPM is actually so impressive though, I won't debate. It's useful, but uhh... yeah. The baseline quality is not quite near something like, say, PyPI.

[sedachv]

That is actually a great comparison and a very strong argument for not using JavaScript. BASIC was big in the 1980s; where is BASIC today? Elisp code from the 1980s still runs or can be trivially ported to Emacs 25. Lisp is not a fad and Lisp never goes away.

[jchw]

Well, to be fair, I don't think JavaScript is at risk of dying the way BASIC did, for a lot of reasons that aren't really worth going into. If it is going to die, though, then WebAssembly is the writing on the wall.

Still, I think you're looking at this from a different angle than I am. I haven't seen one person suggest that it would be a good idea to take the Lisp out of Emacs; simply that having the option to script it with other languages would be nice.

[pjmlp]

> where is BASIC today?

On .NET, UWP and Microsoft Office macros. It even is supported by .NET Native compiler, something that F# is still WIP.

And yes, at enterprise level, there are new lines of VB.NET and VBA being written every day.

[flukus]

I don't see much VB around these days, it was stigmatized so much that just about every shop had to convert to c# (or something else) or they went under because due to the dead sea effect. 10 years ago half of all .net jobs would be VB.net, these days it's probably under 1/10th.

But that's kind of beside the point, VB.net is nothing like the BASIC of the 80's or the 90's, it's got more in common with java.

[pjmlp]

VB.NET is used a lot in life sciences for data analysis by people that know some programming, given that many places have Windows only desktop policy and the data readers happen to only have DLL or COM APIs as programming interface.

The medicine you might take, has been probably measured DRC reaction curves in some VB.NET application.

It is the surviving BASIC, the evolution of QuickBasic and Visual Basic into the .NET environment.

Regarding the 80's BASIC, GW-BASIC was probably the last one of such type of unstructured line numbered BASIC.

[sedachv]

The last time I touched BASIC was Visual Basic 6. VB.NET is a great example of my point - from what I understand it was a huge pain to move VB6 applications to VB.NET

[pjmlp]

I hardly cared about VB since the Visual Basic 6 days, but then I got a few contracts in life sciences domain, and got to realize they are heavy users of it.

That is the tool that many researchers with some programming skills reach for, maybe they will some day move to Python or R, but VB is what they use currently.

[_e]

and this is why I built an entire business around elisp. Elisp is not perfect but I am betting that it'll be around for at least 30 more years.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

Also javascript is pretty good at creating dsls as far as non-lisps go. The only real mainstream competitors on this space are ruby, scala and, possibly, rust.