"Yigal Chripun" <yigal100@gmail.com> wrote in message news:gbh1dl$d1m$2@digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "bearophile" <bearophileHUGS@lycos.com> wrote in message news:gbgr2h$306j$1@digitalmars.com...
>>> Nick Sabalausky:
>>>> FWIW, I was thrilled to see that newer versions of JS actually allow variables to be declared as actual specific types instead of just variant.
>>> Everyone is free to like or dislike JavaScript, but the point here is
>>> that
>>> all JS and all its features are designed to be a small dynamic language
>>> with prototype-based OOP. So bolting on it fake-static-typing plus
>>> Java-style classes makes it a mess. That's why I was not trilled.
>>> If you like static typing and Java-style OOP, is much better to start
>>> with
>>> a Java/C#-like language instead, and keep using it. Think about adding
>>> to
>>> the current D2 language prototype-based OOP too and a lot of dynamic
>>> typing here and there, and you get an image of a reversed situation.
>>>
>>> Bye,
>>> bearophile
>>
>> As far as I'm concerned, dynamic typing and prototype-OO are mistakes
>> period. I can understand that it's good for a language to be true to
>> itself,
>> but when "itself" is just a giant pile of bad ideas in the first place,
>> then
>> shoehorning it into something more sensible, despite being messy or
>> inconsistent, is at least the next best thing to the ideal action of just
>> abandoning the monstrosity entirely and replacing it with what it should
>> have been from the start.
>>
>>
> I've got to disagree with you here.
> prototype OOP is a sensible and much *much* more flexible than your
> plain old class based OOP. for small scripts and little snippets the
> flexibility of both the prototype OOP and dynamic typing is much better
> than the the respective opposite. for those use cases (for which
> javascript was initially intended) js is perfect. the problem was never
> in the language itself.
> WWW was designed to be a platform for mostly static _documents_.
> when people started to create those god-damn awful web-apps they broke
> that design. they use the browser for use-cases it was never meant to
> do. js is used too for large code-bases. it's like trying to build a
> house in the sea with a screwdriver.
>
> what we really need is a suitable platform with different protocols (not http which is stateless and not suitable for applications), a different client software agent (what does it really mean to press the back button in gmail, or take a bookmark? that UI is wrong for the app. the browser is the wrong place to put a mail program in) and different languages. for a real app you'd want to use a statically typed class based OOP language such as D and not js.

I'll grant that dynamic typing and prototype OO are perfectly *usable* for the things JS was originally intended for, although I'm still not convinced it was necessarily the right thing to do.

Other than that though, I completely agree with the rest of what you said 110%, you've completely hit the nail on the head there.

I suppose some people might argue that Ajax helps alleviate some of the problem with using http for applications, but it's only a bandage-fix at best. The root problem is still there.

Thanks for the responses.  I guess I was more interested in what's wrong with Ajax from an end user's point of view than a programmer's.

From the programmer's end:  I know enough about Javascript and DOM to know that the first is decidedly a mediocre language and both are frustratingly inconsistent across browsers.  I guess that's what we get paid (insufficiently well) for. :-)

From the user's end:  If I understand you correctly, your problem with Ajax and it's base technologies is not that they inherently require bad design but rather that they enable or at least encourage bad design.  (And that Ajax and friends would be mostly unnecessary with a few simple fixes in HTML/XHTML.)

The real reason for asking this is that I'm applying for a job where the employer will want me to use Ajax.  From the desciption of the project in the job posting, I can't imagine why they think it would be useful. They'll also want me to use ColdFusion which suggests that the grown-ups are not in charge.  But I promise I'll try not to break the "Back" button. And if they insist on a Flash intro page, I promise I'll try very hard to vomit on the employer. :-)

I've seen enough horribly designed web sites to be quite sympathetic to complaints about various tools encouraging bad design.  But I guess I tend to blame the designer more than the tool.  Bad designers will always be with us no matter what tools we have.  I guess I think that the only thing wrong with Comic Sans is that people use it. :-)

-- 
JMNorris

"JMNorris" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message news:gbh7mk$ob2$1@digitalmars.com...
> Thanks for the responses.  I guess I was more interested in what's wrong with Ajax from an end user's point of view than a programmer's.
>
> From the programmer's end:  I know enough about Javascript and DOM to know that the first is decidedly a mediocre language and both are frustratingly inconsistent across browsers.  I guess that's what we get paid (insufficiently well) for. :-)
>
> From the user's end:  If I understand you correctly, your problem with
> Ajax
> and it's base technologies is not that they inherently require bad design
> but rather that they enable or at least encourage bad design.  (And that
> Ajax and friends would be mostly unnecessary with a few simple fixes in
> HTML/XHTML.)

Yes, that's an accurate summary. Also, I'm rather sore about all of the sites that require JS - that prevents me from using my old trick of avoiding many of the irritations by switching JS off.

>
> The real reason for asking this is that I'm applying for a job where the employer will want me to use Ajax.  From the desciption of the project in the job posting, I can't imagine why they think it would be useful.

Ajax is the latest trendy buzz-word in web development circles these days. Probably more often than not, managers (and especially HR) consider "doing a good job" to essentially be "follow the buzz: what's popular *must* be right".

Another possiblity though is that they want to decrease the load on their servers. Ajax is basically just using JS/DHTML to do partial page loads instead of full page loads, which I'd imagine *can* decrease the load on a server (at the cost of increased processing on the client's end - especially with the more common, less cuttong-edge JS implementations).

> They'll also want me to use ColdFusion which suggests that the grown-ups are not in charge.  But I promise I'll try not to break the "Back" button. And if they insist on a Flash intro page, I promise I'll try very hard to vomit on the employer. :-)
>

Ha ha, yes :)

> I've seen enough horribly designed web sites to be quite sympathetic to complaints about various tools encouraging bad design.  But I guess I tend to blame the designer more than the tool.  Bad designers will always be with us no matter what tools we have.  I guess I think that the only thing wrong with Comic Sans is that people use it. :-)
>
> -- 
> JMNorris

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> Shit, it used to be that you had to actually know what you were
> doing before getting hired to write code...[unintelligible old-man mumbling here...]). 

That was never true :-)

Back in the bad old DOS days, the boom was so great that if you could spell ".BAT" you could get hired as a DOS programmer.

Hello Nick,

> I mean really, there is absolutely no useful functionality that
> JS/Ajax/DHTML provide that can't be accomplished in a
> non-JS/Ajax/DHTML way, either right now or with a few minor
> improvements to XHTML/CSS (such as allowing the "action" and "method"
> attributes to be associated with an "input/submit" tag instead of the
> "form" tag, or allowing link tags to perform a form submission

Rejoice:

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-forms/current-work/#extensions3

This will be available with HTML 5 in 2023 or so.