r/javascript • u/maroun-baydoun • 4d ago

The JavaScript midlife crisis

https://maroun-baydoun.com/blog/javascript-midlife-crisis/

Thirty years in, the JavaScript ecosystem would like to see other languages. They're younger, leaner and faster. What could possibly go wrong?

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u/azhder 4d ago

jQuery wasn't patching JavaScript. There should be a clear distinction between the JavaScript language and the Web ecosystem, especially since plenty of the blame JavaScript takes is because of browsers, not the language itself. If anything jQuery was a showcase how to properly use such a powerful language to fix the issues of the Web platform, not the JavaScript ecosystem.

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u/maroun-baydoun 4d ago

"jQuery unified a web platform whose browsers were barely on speaking terms."

That's the main claim around jQuery's contribution in the post. At the same time, jQuery shipped with some utilities that JavaScript didn't natively support, or where too verbose to implement (e.g. $.extend, $.each)

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u/azhder 4d ago

> When we weren't trying to replace JavaScript, we were busy patching it from the outside. jQuery unified a web platform...

Suspiciously put just after the sentence about being busy patching JavaScript from the outside. Now you're trying to get away from it on a technicality. Why put it in that paragraph at all? You can just not mention jQuery.

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u/maroun-baydoun 4d ago

jQuery became almost synonymous with JavaScript at one point. Just look through old Stack Overflow questions from that era and see how often “JavaScript” problems were answered with jQuery.

I’m not claiming jQuery was literally part of the language or that it patched the ECMAScript specification. The point of that paragraph is that, for a long time, the JavaScript we actually wrote was surrounded by tools and libraries that compensated for what was missing, inconsistent or cumbersome. jQuery was arguably the most prominent example of that.

If “patching JavaScript from the outside” is technically imprecise, fair enough. But that imprecision is a long way from jQuery being irrelevant to the point or “suspiciously” placed there.

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u/azhder 4d ago

I know what your point is. That's why I'm claiming the opposite.

Just by repeating what you already said doesn't help you. This is not "the one with the most stamina wins" kind of thing. You used examples like `$.extend` and `$.each` that aren't examples of patching JavaScript shortcomings, but examples of the power of JavaScript that allows you to use JavaScript to provide what you miss having in JavaScript.

This is where I stop. You can reply back and consider you have won. I will not be repeating the same from above, but in different words. You can simply re-read from the top. Anyone can. Bye