I like JavaScript now
If someone told me a year ago that I’d be saying praises to JavaScript I’d probably choke on laughter. It’s mid 2017 now and I’m saying praises to JavaScript. All it took was using it for a while. Here’s a few of my reasons why I like it (some more humorous than others).
- It runs everywhere. Any browser (where I spend most of my time anyway), including my Chromebook, on the server, and with Electron even on the desktop. Heck, I’m writing this on an Electron app. Java never achieved that.
- It’s intuitive and after the initial setup hassle works more or less fine. Sure, there’s horror stories, but realistically? Get someone to show it to you and take it from there. Like always, having a supportive community helps. (Thanks Haukur!)
- Node is now my favourite prototyping tool. It used to be Ruby, but I like Node better now. I’m building the next generation of Kraftology with it.
- Same goes for scripting. When I can’t do it in Bash, I’ll do it in Node.
- Sure, Ecma 6 is nice, but Typescript is a great little language that brings a lot of statically typed goodness to it. And you can always revert back to plain JS if in doubt. Thanks Microsoft, you’re cool again.
- Back to prototyping, I really like the Google Cloud functions. Super simple to deploy some code with only a few lines.
- Webpack is a sensible project. Powerful and complex, but all in all sensible and well supported.
- Thanks to the awesome community you’ll never have to implement things like a no-op again. npm and Yarn package repositories have you covered. 516 times.
- Speaking of Yarn, I love their emoji game.
Should you use JS for everything? Hell no. Is it sensible in many cases? Hell yeah.