[dvanduzer]

I don't think Don meant that JS was the critical success factor for the Web. But that extensible scripting is crucial to the kind of Web Ted Nelson wanted in the first place.

From my lived experience, the Web craze would be better termed the Modem craze. And the critical success factor that turned it into the Web, was NSF removing the restrictions on commerce in 1995.

JavaScript is just what got HTML closer to some ideals of Xanadu. Not close enough for Ted's vision, but that is a broad sociopolitical vision.

[DonHopkins]

Server side scripting languages were critical to the success of the web, before browser side JavaScript was available and matured.

Simple stateless perl cgi scripts forked from apache that talk to text databases or mysql were the first simplest step, but things got much more interesting with long running stateful application servers like Zope (Python), Java, Radio UserLand, HyperCard, node, etc.

My favorite thing about node is that it lets you use the same language and libraries and data on both the client and server side. That's an enormous advantage that far outweighs JavaScript's disadvantages. But some people just can't see or believe that, for whatever reason, and they're fine with flipping and flopping back and forth between different languages, and hiring different people to write multiple subtly divergent versions of everything in different languages.

Face it: for all its faults, JavaScript won. I will always have a place in my heart for FORTH, PostScript, MockLisp, ScriptX, TCL, Python, HyperTalk, UserTalk, CFML, Java, and all those other weird obsolete scripting languages, but it's soooo much easier to program in one language without switching context all the time, even if it's not the best language in the universe. And TypeScript is a pretty darn good way of writing JavaScript.

You're right, the web was held back until it was finally considered "ok" to use it for commercial activity!

I'd say JavaScript is just what got HTML closer to implementing any ideal you want, and there's no reason Xanadu couldn't be implemented on top of current web technologies (except that Ted doesn't want to). But I don't think extensibility and scripting itself was part of Ted's original vision or implementation.

Just as so much has happened since MVC was invented (yet it's still religiously applied by cargo-cult programmers), also so much has happened since Xanadu was invented (like distributed source code control, for example), which requires a total rethinking from basic principles. We also have the benefit of a lot of really terrible examples and disasterous experiments to learn from (wikipedia markup language, wordpress, etc). Many of Ted's principles should be among those basic principles considered, but they're not the only ones.

[dvanduzer]

Hmm, HyperCard in the same list as Zope and node? Interesting. :-)

The idea that JavaScript "won" is a little controversial to me. I think it's huge and important, but the world is still changing. Embedded Python goes places that Node still can't. I absolutely see the value you describe in sticking to one ecosystem, but I don't think JavaScript/TypeScript/Node is the only way to get those benefits. (See also: Transcrypt) I really enjoyed the PyCon 2014 talk on the general subject: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

The most recent conversation I had with Ted was after someone had just demonstrated the HoloLens for him and a few others. Ted had some feedback for the UI developer, and it didn't have anything to do with JavaScript or that level of implementation detail at all. It was all about the user experience. I don't want to put words into his mouth, but like he says in this recent interview, this is all hard to talk about because it really has changed so quickly.

I do think you're right that a lot of what Ted wanted to see could be implemented today in JavaScript and Git. But I think about the technical meat of that vision to be about data-driven interfaces. I am simply not old enough to really understand how notions of "scripting" changed between the 60s and the 80s. But the fact that Xanadu was started in SmallTalk suggests to me that scripting was part of the vision, even if a notion like "browser extensions" might not have been in mind.

Completely agree that there are other voices to learn from, and other important mistakes that have been made since Xanadu! (I think Ted would agree, too.)