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by Gene_Parmesan
2342 days ago
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He was... kind of. My understanding is Eich had been thinking for a while about the idea of bringing a version of Scheme into the browser. He was lured to work for Netscape by the promise that yes, he could do this. Unfortunately the business decision came down that the language's syntax had to approximate Java. So the semantics of the language had probably been settled in his mind for quite some time, but the syntax change still makes the 10 days an impressive feat. (And also explains a lot of the weirdness in JavaScript -- you're writing code and expecting it to behave like a C-like, but you're actually kind of writing quasi-Scheme and you don't know it.) |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX3ZABCdC38
Friends from SGI recruited me (second attempt) in March 1995, I joined in early April but in the server group. I thought a lot -- but worked too little due to server commitments -- during the month of April, about "the scripting language" which was suggested to be Scheme when I was being recruited, but which by the time I joined could not be Scheme, due to the impending Java deal between Netscape and Sun.
Java meant either no scripting language, or a kid-brother language, which meant C-like syntax, primitive vs. object types as in Java, and other unfortunate consequences.
When I transferred to the client group in early May, I had to produce a demo very quickly. I chose first class functions and (barefly there at first) prototypes as the building blocks. The rest is history.