Sure, I'm familiar with the conditions under which Javascript was created, but those are all political issues, not technical ones.

If you had to go back and recreate another C++, you would be forgiven for creating a bad language, because making a good, usable language without a garbage collector is really hard, and even moreso when it has to be compatible with C. If you had to recreate Javascript... I would think it would be expected that you don't make a language with the same kinds of flaws JS has today. There were plenty of examples of languages Javascript could have been based off of when it was written (like Java).

Case in point: it took decades for Rust to come around which was the first real challenge to C++. In the same period of time, we saw several GC languages appear (Java, C#, Go, PHP, Swift, Ruby, Python, all younger than C++), all competing against each other. Javascript would have been abandoned if it didn't have a monopoly on web programming.

It may not be perfectly compatible, but being mostly compatible with C was a large part of its selling point when it was originally announced. Without that, it probably wouldn't have seen as much adoption. However, that choice also led to a lot of difficult design decisions which have become a liability today.

I'm not trying to goad you into an argument, though I could have admittedly phrased things better. I just can't think of any reason why someone would want adopt Javascript as it is with all of its problems. A slice of pie is better than nothing at all. On the other hand, using Javascript when a much better alternative exists (namely Typescript) would be a significant liability in my opinion.

In fact, pretty much everyone on our front-end team at work would agree too - they're pretty much unanimous in saying that Javascript should basically never be used.

I also agree that Javascript is worse. C++ has two excuses for being bad:

1. It has to be compatible with C, a language that's multiple decades older than it, and
2. It is not garbage collected.

Javascript has neither of those two excuses. People only use it today because of the ubiquity of web programming. In fairness, it did kill off a few other technologies, like Flash and Java applets, but that was more Webkit and Chrome picking it as the winner than anything else.

Maybe these arguments are a bit hand-wavy, but the way I see it, it's like the C of the web programming era.

It’s perfectly possible for a slice of pie to be pleasant, and a slice of pie with ice cream to be more pleasant.

In my personal opinion though, that's not how I would describe Javascript vs. Typescript. Javascript was basically replaced overnight, to the point where you should be very harshly criticized for ever using it these days unless you're maintaining a legacy project.

As a bit of an aside, I learned recently why Mozilla has the weird Corporate/Foundation structure that it does: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47701441

Basically the IRS is highly skeptical of the idea that free software development fits the legal definition of a 501(c)(3), and tends to reject such applications [1][2]. That is why Mozilla Foundation cannot use donations for Firefox development, and instead uses them for activism.

Someone claiming to be the CEO of one of these foundations appears to confirm it. Just thought people might be interested to know since this comes up in pretty much every thread about Mozilla.

The only way to fend off far-right parties is to elect governments that will actually take action to make people's lives better. I mean dramatic, even drastic actions to improvements in quality of life for real people, not billionaires.

Centrists and even some center-left parties don't seem to get this, or they do but they don't care. It seems like leftist parties are the only ones that are willing to step up. They need our support more than ever.

Absolutely gorgeous

I'm not a fan of AI personally, but the "copying others' work" argument never resonated with me. The internet makes copying data trivial - if you still get worked up over people using a technology that has been trivial since the '90s, well, I don't know what to tell you, but you're just not going to win that one. People are just going to keep doing it anyway and maybe it sucks, but there's nothing you can do about it.

The only reason file sharing is illegal today is because nobody bribed politicians to keep it legal.

I can confirm. I've worked for two different companies since 2023, and in both of them, there was a cabal that were super hyped up on AI while the rest just ignored them. In one of them, it was half the company, but that company was more like a cult.... People in my current one are more level-headed, but that just makes the divide look even bigger.

Something about convincing people about things their income depends on....

There's probably also a tragedy of the commons kind of situation. Yes, it's bad, but everyone else is doing it so you have to as well. If 99% of people do it and you don't, you're even worse off than everyone else.

Economics often turns into a terrible social policy.