Because JavaScript is the language of the web browser, and because the web browser has become the dominant application delivery system, and because JavaScript isn't too bad, JavaScript has become the World's Most Popular Programming Language.
— Douglas Crockford, The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language Has Become the World's Most Popular Programming Language
Hey, who's that guy up there with the web application programmer?
Who, him? That's just the Pope.
Thanks. I thought it was an insightful article.
Does it bother you that Douglas Crockford and Brendan Eich are popular whereas you are not? Your recent blogs suggest to me that it might.
Re:nice article
slanning on 2008-03-31T09:16:48
I regret already adding the 2nd paragraph, but it's too late to edit... I should examine more what it is that I envy, since it is probably you in this case.Re:nice article
mr_bean on 2008-04-01T05:36:07
I WAS wondering if chromatic was directing our attention to Eich and Crockford washing dirty linen! Anyway, that's what I took away from their exchange at the ECMAScript 4 listRe:nice article
chromatic on 2008-04-01T06:39:28
Does it bother you that Douglas Crockford and Brendan Eich are popular whereas you are not?Not really. If I'd ever wanted to be famous, I'd choose a more likely-sounding pen name. I'd like to be respected for my accomplishments, but I really can't control how other people see me, and I hate self-aggrandizement, so I try to avoid that (not easy, if you get paid to write and speak and think about things.)
I also like Brendan Eich; he's terribly smart and endearingly personable. I don't think I've met Douglas Crockford, but it's possible we've met in passing.
I find languages (spoken and invented) and language design fascinating. I find language advocacy frustrating when it departs with reality and not for the sake of emphasis.
I'd like to see more sober discussions on the Internet4. Ruby didn't invent metaprogramming or polymorphism. Python's OO works basically the same way as Perl 5's (barring the mish-mash that is references in Perl 5). Lisp didn't win and it isn't going to win. PHP's advantage is that it's easy to deploy applications if someone else has installed mod_php for you. Writing a million lines of Java doesn't mean you have a big serious program, it means you have an enormous design problem. Functional programming won't save the world from many-core parallelism. The big secret of the web isn't JavaScript and XMLHttpRequest, it's HTTP and REST. If you didn't write a parser, your DSL is an API and emo is bad poetry for whiny musicians not even talented enough to play punk at full speed.
Oh, and you don't get to complain about the schedule of volunteer projects and the work ethic of volunteers unless you're paying them or otherwise contributing.
Basically I'm an idealist with a venue for publishing my thoughts and a motto stolen from Thomas More by way of C. S. Lewis, and as such it's occasionally easy to figure out what I think about in any given week.
