[thelist] JavaScript only for browsers? Bah! Humbug!

[Christian Heilmann]

> Christian Heilmann wrote:
> > This seems to be part of a trend, and more
> > and more apps allow for JS as a means of extending them. I collected
> > some here:
>
> Christian,
>
> Do you think this will continue? There seems to be a hard limit in
> application size when using JavaScript, after which developers start to
> get really frustrated by its OO limitations. With universities pumping
> out OOP-minded developers, it's hard to imagine that JavaScript (in its
> current state) will really be picked up for serious development.

Not as the main language, no, although the new drafts of JavaScript 2
(http://www.mozilla.org/js/language/js20/) point in a direction where
it can go. I don't see JavaScript apps outside the browser, but I can
see a lot of thick client apps in any language of choice allowing
customization and extension via JavaScript. Homesite is a good
example. It is quite dated in its support for some scripting aspects,
but with own user scripts and shortcuts you can make it work quite
nicely. I for example have a script connected to a shortcut that
changes things like

dC to if(!document.getElementById || !document.createTextNode){return;}
gI-foo to getElementById('foo')

and so on.

With customization becoming more and more important (2.0, baby), JS is
a nice way of offering it.

> I've used it for a pretty large fat-client project, and I'll be the
> first to admit that if I could have used another language, I would have.
> - From talking with other developers in similar projects, it seems like
> they too were using it only because of the "that's what we've got" factor.

True. Especially in some projects with very complex forms scattered
over several views I opted to go for Flex instead, but many a time the
client didn't trust Flash/Flex and asked for a very heavy JS version
instead. Then again, even those are changing.

> But, for things like this where a decision is being made to use
> JavaScript (as opposed to a "that's what we've got" situation), it's
> hard to see it being used for anything beyond simple extension (and, I
> would agree that for that purpose JavaScript/CSS is a very good choice).

Yes :-)


-- 
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
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