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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern Subscriber

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How has JavaScript development changed over the last decade?

... And what new things changed it the most?

Latest comments (38)

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jcubic profile image
Jakub T. Jankiewicz • Edited

Nice video that show the JavaScript development progress:

The Story of Next.js

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jaeming profile image
jaeming

It definitely could be that way still but the critical thing promises added over callbacks was an immediate return (of a promise), where as callbacks didn't immediately return.
This lent itself more to a chainable .then style that could be structured into a relatively flat format. async/await just took that one step further by enforcing the linear progression. Interestingly, I see people awaiting every possible async call now even when it's not necessary.

 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett πŸŒ€

I no interest in furthering this narrow discussion on node for the server when a large proportion of my node apps are tools, good day.

 
jcubic profile image
Jakub T. Jankiewicz

You can say whatevery you want, but I don't think you're right. Of course you don't need to agree with me. You have your own option I have mine.

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jcubic profile image
Jakub T. Jankiewicz • Edited

Also I think that you don't understand the purpose of this post and my comment. This is my personal milestones in JavaScript development. You can't say that I'm wrong if I write my own experience with JavaScript development. Your experience may be different why don't you write your own milestones instead of jumping on me.

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jcubic profile image
Jakub T. Jankiewicz

Also I've written:

AngularJS that was probably the first ever full framework where you could create your own SPA IN BETTER WAY.

It was first framework that added reactive way of writing SPA with double data binding, with declarative way of writing components.

 
adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett πŸŒ€

Encourages microservices in cloud platforms where they complicate architecture way more than help

Not sure how math being slower relates to complexity but okay nobody claims that node is the fastest, it's not supposed to be fast is not the only metric I suppose.

The question Ben asked was what has changed and JavaScript moving to the backend was absolutely one of them.

I can see you have some issue with JavaScript people getting involved in a really complected world of backend and screwing it all up which is really short sighted, you can know a lot of typed languages and still write JavaScript

Your tech stack matters a lot more than just whether you like a language or not.

That is completely fictional, your tech stack matters to it's particular application, high per for high perf requirements.

Choosing a language for light speed when your making a to-do list is not a good idea contrary what some might tell you.
Being able to maintain a stack is, look at dev.to it's ruby, is ruby known to be fast? No, is it beloved, I hear it is

 
jcubic profile image
Jakub T. Jankiewicz • Edited

Yes but you write your code in ASP, you can write application and don't touch JS at all. The same Google GWT and R Shiny are not JavaScript. We talk about Pure JavaScript, not some Hybrid. ASP.Net is C# framework not JavaScript framework.

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jcubic profile image
Jakub T. Jankiewicz • Edited

Check Wikipedia there is only one mention of JavaScript in this article. I think that you're confusing web app development with JavaScript development.

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jcubic profile image
Jakub T. Jankiewicz • Edited

ASP.Net is not JavaScript if you're not aware. There was also GWT but we don't talk about other langauges.

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adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett πŸŒ€

Evidence to support these claims?

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thumbone profile image
Bernd Wechner

Lots!

I'll leave it to others to expand on the details. But believe me, it's lots! ;-)

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kspeakman profile image
Kasey Speakman

A couple of decades here.

  • V8
    • Demonstrated JS could be fast enough to run a full client-side app
  • Standards bodies cleaning up and expanding features
    • Making it possible to build web apps that previously required plugins (Flash)
  • Browsers aligning to standards and fixing their JS bugs
    • Made cross-browser apps less of a hacky mess
  • Newer JS standards
    • Avoiding many JS footguns, adding QoL features
  • Declarative HTML
    • Coding the HTML you want to see (React and others)
    • Instead of the instructions to get there (jQuery)
  • Death of IE
    • No more hacks or fallbacks for out-of-date standards
    • I've fought with IE most of my 2 decades as a developer
    • Effectively dead today with Microsoft's own products not supporting it
    • Official EOL tied with Windows 10, currently Oct 2025

My hopes for the future

  • Non-horrible build processes
  • WebAssembly complete independence from JS
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leob profile image
leob

One of the best overviews I've seen here :)