3 HN users recommended this talk3 months2018–2025score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN recommends it as a hilarious talk by a beloved speaker, and also uses it to jab at JavaScript's quirks.
James Mickens delivers his comedic rant about JavaScript and web programming, in his usual dry, hyperbolic style. It includes his account of learning the language from the O'Reilly Definitive Guide.
“James Mickens is a national treasure. Go watch his talks on YouTube and read everything he writes.” (HN, 2023)
James Mickens is a national treasure. Go watch his talks on YouTube and read everything he writes. [link] Excellence. Quality. Science. These are just a few of the words that have been applied to the illustrious research career of James Mickens. In the span of a few years, James Mickens has made deep, fundamental, and amazing contributions to various areas of computer science and life. Widely acknowledged as one of the greatest scholars of his generation, James Mickens ran out of storage space for his awards in 1992, and he subsequently purchased a large cave to act as a warehouse/fortress from which he can defend himself during the inevitable robot war that was prophesied by the documentary movie “The Matrix.” In his spare time, James Mickens enjoys life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, often (but not always) in that order, and usually (almost always) while listening to Black Sabbath. Feel free to start here [this video]
Hilarious Mickens talk as starting point for his work.
1. Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible? - James Mickens [link] 2. James Mickens on JavaScript - James Mickens [this video] 3. Creating containers From Scratch - Liz Rice [link] 4. 2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Existence of Nothing - Panelists: J. Richard Gott, Jim Holt, Lawrence Krauss, Charles Seife, Eve Silverstein. Moderator: Neil deGrasse Tyson [link] 5. 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Is the Universe a Simulation? - Panelists: David Chalmers, Zohreh Davoudi, James Gates, Lisa Randall, Max Tegmark Moderator: Neil deGrasse Tyson [link] 6. Zig: A programming language designed for robustness, optimality, and clarity – Andrew Kelley [link] 7. Concurrency Is Not Parallelism - Rob Pike [link]
James Mickens on learning Javascript by using the O'Reilly Definitive Guide book: [this video] "At first I thought that this book was going to be like any other programming book; there's going to be some syntax a few examples a list of API's and so on, but as I read this book I realized it was like a Japanese game show - I was cast into this strange world that I didn't understand and I was forced to compete in these games of wit and strength that made no sense."
Mickens comically describes learning JavaScript from the O'Reilly book.
A better question is why Javascript is still being used: [link] [this video] Can't we just get WASM browser APIs and then do the web in whatever programming language we want?
>> The things in this list are clearly mistakes. They aren't optimised, evolved solutions. They've just stuck around due to network effects. Hello, JavaScript: [link] [this video] Why are we waiting so long for WASM to replace JavaScript? [link] It's a similar story. Bad designs (perhaps they were reasonable given the circumstances?) that were set in stone due to network effects.
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