> If you find yourself typing something about "the type of programmers attracted to X language" just delete what you wrote and move on.
I wouldn't say that's the right way to go about it or to think, especially in the case of JavaScript - more than ever, it's being taken up by people with no passion or desire to program solely so they can make what they think is going to be "The Next [WebCompany]," it's something that doesn't particularly have a parallel with any other language.
> End-users don't care about executing "non optimal code."
They do when the window freezes, or their Electron app locks and crashes, or when they suddenly can't have their browser running in the background while they're playing a video game.
> more than ever, it's being taken up by people with no passion or desire to program solely so they can make what they think is going to be "The Next [WebCompany],"
See, that's why you were encouraged to stop before you dug yourself deeper. Now you've doubled down on disparaging an entire class of people based on their choice of programming language because of some assumed greed you think they think they have.
Perhaps people are taking up Javascript because it is, bar none, the easiest language to play around with. Every modern computer either ships with a browser installed, and the vast majority of them, excluding mobile platforms, allow for someone to easily open a Javascript development environment not just to start something new, but to tinker around with the web page they are looking at.
Of course there will be horrible and crappy Javascript programs and libraries released to the wild. That's the same whenever there's a large influx or new people to the programming ecosystem and a language that's fairly easy to use but has some edge cases. Just look at Perl, and the CGIs of the late 1990's and early 2000's. A very large part of Perl's current reputation is because of people that weren't the best programmers (because they were new) being able to whip out little programs to do what they want, but also not entirely understanding some of the deeper intricacies of Perl or some better programming practices in general.
A great comment, and I couldn't agree more. If the family computer in the early 90s didn't have QBasic - I wouldn't be a developer today.
> more than ever, it's being taken up by people with no passion or desire to program solely so they can make what they think is going to be "The Next [WebCompany],"
I feel like kbenson forgets that the point of programming to the vast majority of people, is typically the end result.
> I feel like kbenson forgets that the point of programming to the vast majority of people, is typically the end result.
Sure it is. I just think most people don't start out thinking "I'm going to make the next Facebook", or at least not seriously. A lot of the time it's just tinkering. I mean, that's the reason the code produced isn't high quality, because the people really are complete amateurs screwing around. In that respect, I think the end result is "I want to learn this or to make something cool".
I wouldn't say that's the right way to go about it or to think, especially in the case of JavaScript - more than ever, it's being taken up by people with no passion or desire to program solely so they can make what they think is going to be "The Next [WebCompany]," it's something that doesn't particularly have a parallel with any other language.
> End-users don't care about executing "non optimal code."
They do when the window freezes, or their Electron app locks and crashes, or when they suddenly can't have their browser running in the background while they're playing a video game.