Is JavaScript becoming a Ruby killer?

http://blog.jaoo.dk/2008/09/11/is-javascript-a-ruby-killer/

by nreece • 18 years ago

28 45 18 years ago

blog.jaoo.dk

qhoxie• 18 years ago

No. I won't attempt to refute claims that Ruby is a temporary hype language (though I don't personally agree), but to suggest that Javascript will be the language to dethrone it is ludicrous. What he essentially suggests is that Javascript is becoming powerful enough to eliminate the current need for server side languages. This, simply, is not the case.

procrastitron2• 18 years ago

Can you give some reasons you think Javascript isn't good enough for server side programming?

Certainly the language is pretty powerful, and with Rhino it's fairly easy to integrate with existing libraries.

iigs• 18 years ago

Without a good platform there's not much to say about the validity of a programming language for a specific task other than it's Turing complete and it has features that might be nice someday if they could actually be used.

Until Rails ruby wasn't a particularly nice language for coding server-side web applications. In 2002-2003 I worked for a company developing one, and had it taken off we would have had to rework it in another language very quickly.

briancooley• 18 years ago

>Of course, having faster JavaScript on the client still leaves a lot of room for server-side frameworks, and I still think Ruby is well suited for that.

Based on the above quote, I don't think he's suggesting that Javascript will eliminate the need for server side languages at all. He seems concerned about hype, so maybe he thinks that that the hype might be moving from Ruby to Javascript.

FWIW, I don't think Ruby is going away anytime soon.

SwellJoe4• 18 years ago

What he essentially suggests is that Javascript is becoming powerful enough to eliminate the current need for server side languages.

I think it's obvious that JavaScript is as powerful a language as Ruby, on the "blub" spectrum, anyway. Where it fails is on connecting to the underlying OS--breaking out of the VM and doing something with the system, which is something that Ruby (and Perl, from which Ruby inherited most of this stuff) has in spades.

That said, when (not if) JavaScript gets a reasonable FFI and good ties to the underlying OS, on the order of Ruby, Python, and Perl, it will be the obvious choice for implementing just about everything. Faster implementations (V8 and Tracemonkey are faster for many classes of problem than any of the current dynamic language kings, and on par with Smalltalk) mean that once the "plays well with others" problem is solved sufficiently, there will be little reason to choose Ruby/Python/Perl except "I like it better"...and, though I do happen to like Ruby, Perl, and Python a lot, I also find JavaScript a very pretty language with a lot of power.

If it gets block scope (which Ruby also doesn't really have, I think?), and the previously mentioned FFI and OS integration, I will have nothing else to complain about (except the DOM).

Raphael• 18 years ago

What is preventing JS from running at the OS level? Couldn't it just borrow the engine of another language?

jsrn2• 18 years ago

   > If it gets block scope [...]

it has block scope since Javascript 1.7 (which is of course only supported on the client side by Firefox (FF 2) and I think Webkit) and on the server side it's supported in Rhino 1.7R1 and of course Spidermonkey.

block scoping overview and examples (search for let statements, let expressions, let definitions): http://developer.mozilla.org/en/New_in_JavaScript_1.7

compay• 18 years ago

> If it gets block scope (which Ruby also doesn't really have, I think?)

Yeah, it does, but it's a little different. Here I iterate through an array in a block, assigning the current value to a local variable. Afterwards you can see that local_var remains undefind in the higher scope.

[norman@elis] +> irb

>> [1, 2, 3].each {|i| local_var = i; puts local_var}

=> [1, 2, 3]

>> puts local_var

NameError: undefined local variable or method `local_var'

for main:Object

from (irb):2

from :0

However unlike C-like languages, Ruby doesn't treat if/else type statements as a block. So for example this works in Ruby:

>> if true

>> local_var = "hello"

>> end

=> "hello"

>> puts local_var

hello

nikils• 18 years ago

Did any one try to run javascript with llvm ? javascript without dom and with FFI might be interesting to use on server side.

jrockway6• 18 years ago

Why do you need LLVM for this? Just use any server-side Javascript implementation, port your foreign functions over, and ignore DOM.

aaronblohowiak• 18 years ago

uhhh, what? how does having faster, fatter client side effect the server side at all (in the m and the c.. the v may be data transforms from objects->html to objects->json.. meh)

he isnt even proposing JS on the server side.

bprater• 18 years ago

Client != Server.

mpc• 18 years ago

I don't understand. I was actually writing server-side javascript before taking a break to read this site

r7000• 18 years ago

http://almaer.com/blog/rotating-java-and-javascript-on-the-s...

twism• 18 years ago

Server side javascript runs ycfeeds.com

tlrobinson2• 18 years ago

There's two possiblities here:

- Will JavaScript displace Ruby as a server-side language?

- Will developers push more and more of their application logic to the client, relegating the server to be a simple storage layer (with authentication, etc, thereby reducing the usefulness of server side frameworks like Rails.

I could see both happening. JavaScript is the most widely deployed language to clients, and you can control what you deploy on servers, so it seems like the ideal language if you want the same across both clients and servers.

halo• 18 years ago

No. Lots of people don't actually like JavaScript much, especially its inheritance model, which is why you get obscene over-the-top technical solutions to stop people from writing it. The language has also been slow to evolve to fix core problems with it due to the fact that any changes need to be agreed with by the major browser vendors. It's likely the language wouldn't be popular if it wasn't for the fact it is the de facto in-browser programming language.

FWIW, I actually /do/ like JavaScript.

shimi• 18 years ago

There are too many script languages and implementation as is

jrockway6• 18 years ago

Yup, and every time a new language becomes popular, it will make your app written in the "old" language stop working.

Oh wait, no.

omouse• 18 years ago

No discussion of meta-programming? Can you duplicate the Ruby tricks in JavaScript?

jrockway6• 18 years ago

the Ruby tricks?

Why couldn't you? You have anonymous functions in JavaScript, that's as much metaprogramming capability as you get in Ruby. (Notably absent from both are macros.)

raganwald• 18 years ago

Well, you are obviously right about JS having anonymous functions. In addition to anonymous functions, Ruby also has a very late-binding object and class system borrowed from SmallTalk that also--to the Java or C# programmer--looks like trickery.

This can be built on top of JS, of course, but I also recall Object Assembler ;-)

tlrobinson2• 18 years ago

JavaScript doesn't have "method_missing" (but Objective-J does! It's called "forwardInvocation")

jhancock• 18 years ago

The promise JavaScript holds for server side web apps is that a programmer is far more productive with a tool he knows exceptionally well than with several tools he knows just enough. In this way, JavaScript can be used on both client and server and the programmer gets to be a real pro at just one language instead of two or more. This is real value. But...sea changes in IT happen for lots of unpredictable reasons. Just because you have nice rational for why it makes sense does not mean it will happen.

jacobscott• 18 years ago

Do people actually like javascript, or just like the fact that it is de-facto always present in browsers due to its prevalence on the web (I could ask the same question about flash). The vast majority of client-side js I look at is spaghetti. To be fair, I'm looking at random webpages, not jQuery tutorial websites.

eyelidlessness3• 18 years ago

I like Javascript, and given the choice I'd use it server-side as well. It's an excellent language; very minimal, lends itself well to concise but powerful code, and can be made to do pretty much anything given a decent API.

Most of the Javascript you look at is terrible because most of it is copypasted from tutorials dating back many years, when Javascript was, at best, not very well understood or known, and not the domain of serious applications. The modern libraries like jQuery and Prototype definitely exemplify how Javascript could be though.

jrockway6• 18 years ago

Actually, most JavaScript looks bad because of people cargo-culting bad DOM code.

I don't really like Javascript, but I do agree that the core language is minimal but complete. I will stick with Lisp when I want that, though, because Lisp is nicer looking and has macros.

wayne• 18 years ago

Microsoft's had JScript and JScript.NET for server programming for a while and recently added Managed JScript: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JScript

It's never really taken off, though Microsoft always pushed VBScript over JScript and C#/VB.NET over the managed JScripts. I used server-side JScript a little back in the old school ASP days and actually found it pretty confusing having both server and client code in the same language, though it sounded appealing in theory. More to wrap your head around.

I do admit a second love with client-side JavaScript after the recent resurgence, but I definitely don't see it displacing Python, Ruby, or even Perl anytime soon. The core language is nice, but it's got a long ways to go.

jon_dahl• 18 years ago

To his Ruby 1.8 vs. 1.9 question: the difference isn't huge, and I don't think we'll see a split. You get fibers (coroutines); new hash syntax, like User.create(name: "David", address: "123 Fake St."), Enumerators, and lots of little changes. Ruby 1.9 programs should look pretty much like Ruby 1.8 programs for the most part.

The more likely split would be on the implementation level: MRI/YARV vs. Rubinius vs. JRuby vs. Gemstone. The camps are working together pretty well right now and aren't looking to divide the community, but I would hate to see it turn into a Lisp-like situation. No offense to Lisp - I love it from the outside, and would enjoy using it professionally - but the fragmentation is definitely a barrier to entry.

khangtoh• 18 years ago

The browser is not the world.

Is JavaScript becoming a Ruby killer?

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