A lot of the jokes about JavaScript being messy come from historical quirks—like loose equality, type coercion oddities, or the way `this` behaves—but the ECMAScript specification has been steadily improved over the years by ECMA TC39 (the committee responsible for developing the standard).
Likewise PHP has been somewhat inconsistent historically and carries its own legacy quirks—but it's JS that gets mocked, because why?
Meanwhile Java—although designed with a cohesive strict, statically typed, object-oriented sensibility—has seen fit to add lambda expressions, stream APIs, record types, and pattern matching, following some of the same trends as ECMA TC39.
So, when it comes to developer ergonomics—which, I daresay, is the subject of this satire and the preeminent aspect of a language most hotly debated—does JS really deserve the hate? There must be some other current of thought—some dark matter—warping the discourse.
edem · 1h ago
You don't have to use PHP so there is no reason to mock it. You just know it is shit and you move on. Unfortunately you __have to__ use javascript sometimes (or always) so there is reason to mock it. That's the reason why people always mock JS. It is omnipresent and you have to touch it with your bare hands.
MaulingMonkey · 29m ago
And to back up your point: Whenever someone in my circle does have to use PHP (job, legacy nonsense, etc.) they absolutely do mock it. They also mock the codebase they work on for similar reasons. Part venting, part communication of the footguns - such that others might learn from what they had to learn the hard way, and perhaps part bribe - that others might share their own footguns in commiseration and trade.
archerx · 31m ago
I’m sorry but Personal Home Page is not shit. It’s quite nice, it’s like using a comfy version of C designed for the web.
edem · 8m ago
[delayed]
archerx · 32m ago
PHP has been relentlessly mocked for the past decade, there were websites dedicated to making fun of its quirks. Things only started turning around after PHP 7.
rambambram · 1h ago
I added the RSS feed to my reader, the file is 'rss.php'.
userbinator · 4h ago
I was hoping to see APL or one of the other array languages make an appearance.
Likewise PHP has been somewhat inconsistent historically and carries its own legacy quirks—but it's JS that gets mocked, because why?
Meanwhile Java—although designed with a cohesive strict, statically typed, object-oriented sensibility—has seen fit to add lambda expressions, stream APIs, record types, and pattern matching, following some of the same trends as ECMA TC39.
So, when it comes to developer ergonomics—which, I daresay, is the subject of this satire and the preeminent aspect of a language most hotly debated—does JS really deserve the hate? There must be some other current of thought—some dark matter—warping the discourse.