[antonvs]

What do you think "objective" means?

The comparative approach I mentioned can be used to eliminate personal feelings about such issues - not in all cases (types might be an example), but certainly in some.

Many users of Javascript, including myself, recognize that it has many weaknesses. There's even a book that acknowledges this in its title: "Javascript: The Good Parts."

Denying this seems to be denying objective reality.

You may be confusing "objective" with "universal," thinking that I'm claiming some unsituated universal truth. But that's not the case. Any statement is only ever true within some context - the language that defines it, the semantics of the statement, the premises that it assumes.

In this case, there is a shared context that crosses programming languages, that allows us in at least some cases to draw objective conclusion about programming language features. "The bad parts" implied by Crockford's title includes many such features. We can examine them and conclude that while they might have some historical rationale, that they are not good features for a programming language to have.

In many cases this conclusion is possible because there's simply no good justification - the title of this post is an example. Having all numbers be floating point has many negative consequences and no significant positive ones - the only reason for it is historical. Such features end up having consequences, such as on the design of hardware like ARM chips. That is an objectively terrible outcome.

You can of course quibble with such a statement, based on a rigid application of a simplistic set of definitions. But you'd do better to try to understand the truth conveyed by such a statement.

[likeclockwork]

What do YOU think "objective" means?

None of the properties you're talking about are objective. Objective doesn't mean Crockford wrote a book about it or "lots of people agree with me".

Objective means factual. You're putting the word "objective" in front of your own and others opinions to arrogate the credibility of objectivity onto statements that are not based in observation of material reality.

More people holding an opinion doesn't make it a fact. "Terribleness" or "justifiableness" are not matters of fact, they are both matters of opinion.

Do you understand? You keep repeating your opinion and then using the word "objective" to claim that your opinion is fact. You think I am disagreeing with your opinion, rather I am disagreeing with you stating your opinion is a fact. No matter how many people agree with you it will never be a fact, it will always be an opinion because "terribleness" is not a matter of fact! "Terribleness" is the result of a value judgement.

There are no such things as "objective conclusions", objectivity is not a manner of reasoning. You're looking for something more like "observations", "measurements", hard facts.. none of which apply to "terribleness" because it can't be materially observed--only judged.

"Objectively" isn't an intensifier unless used in the form "Objectively [something that isn't objective]." Why would actual facts need to be intensified? What kind of insane argument would anyone have where facts and opinions are compared directly?

I know it sounds stronger to say your opinions are facts but it is okay to have opinions. Just remember that the difference between opinions and facts is a difference of kind rather than a difference of degree. You can argue an opinion, you can attempt to persuade me to your way of thinking if you show your reasoning.

[antonvs]

You can just look up some dictionary definitions, like "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts." I've explained how that applies in this case - we can use comparative analysis to draw factual conclusions.

Focusing on the specific word "terrible" is a bit silly. Sure, it's hyperbolic, but I used it as a way to capture the idea that Javascript has many features that are comparatively worse at achieving their goals than equivalent features in many other languages. This is something that can be analyzed and measured, producing facts.

Crockford's book title is simply an example of how even a strong advocate of Javascript recognizes its weaknesses. You may not understand how it's possible for it to objectively have weaknesses, but that doesn't mean it doesn't. In this case an objectively bad feature would be one that has negative consequences for programmers, and can be replaced by a features that can achieve the same goals more effectively, without those negative consequences.

If there's anyone who'll argue in favor of such features on technical rather than historical grounds, then it would certainly undermine the objectivity claim. But the point is that there are (mis)features in Javascript which no-one defends on technical grounds. That is a reflection of underlying objective facts.

I'm also not making some sort of ad populum argument. As I pointed out, any claim of objective fact has to be made in some context that provides it with semantics. In some languages, the expression "1"+"1" is a type error, in others it produces "11". Both of those outcomes are objective facts in some context. What your objection really amounts to is saying that there's no semantic context in which my claim could be true. That's clearly not the case.

Perhaps a different example would help: people don't write programs any more by toggling binary codes into machines via switches. That's because we've come up with approaches that are objectively more effective. We can factually measure the improvements in question. The features I was referring to fall into the same category.

I'm going to repeat the closing from my last comment, because you're still doing the same thing:

You can of course quibble with such claims, based on a rigid application of a simplistic set of definitions. But you'd do better to try to understand the truth conveyed by the claims, and engage with that.

[likeclockwork]

Again, you think I am disagreeing with your opinion by pointing out that it is an opinion and not a matter of fact. You're only continuing to restate your opinion and insist it is fact.

Claims of objective facts? Objective facts in some context? Badness isn't a matter of fact--it's a matter of opinion, I say again, you're making a value judgement and asserting that as a fact. You may as well tell me an onion is a planet and I can live on it if I believe hard enough.

You think I am disparaging your argument by saying it is mere opinion as though they isn't good enough to be real true fact. I am not, I am merely pointing out that your statement is actually an opinion which you are incorrectly claiming to be a fact.

> I'm also not making some sort of ad populum argument. As I pointed out, any claim of objective fact has to be made in some context that provides it with semantics. In some languages, the expression "1"+"1" is a type error, in others it produces "11". Both of those outcomes are objective facts in some context. What your objection really amounts to is saying that there's no semantic context in which my claim could be true. That's clearly not the case.

"Objective fact" isn't claimed. You seem to be missing that an opinion even if backed up by evidence still isn't itself a fact and thus isn't objective. This isn't a matter of context. The difference between opinion and fact is not like the difference between true and false.

I don't know how you're lost on this. "JS is bad" is an opinion. "JS is objectively bad" is still an opinion but claims to be a fact, because "badness" isn't an objective property. Whether or not something is bad is not a matter of fact, it's a matter of opinion.

The "+" operator performs both string concatenation and addition in JS. <-- That is a fact, anyone can fire up a JS interpreter and confirm this for themselves.

The "+" operator being overloaded to perform string concatenation and addition with implicit type coercion is bad. <-- That's an opinion. While anyone can observe the behavior, they have to make a judgement on whether or not it is desirable and desirability is not a matter of fact.