Crockford on JavaScript - Volume 1: The Early Years

But programmers don't want better languages[0]. Programmers mostly just want what they already have. You can't overcome that kind of resistance just by saying "look, here's a language that's more fun and modern". Programmers say they want better languages, but good luck trying to convince them to switch to a new language just by its merit. The only tangible benefit of Swift is that it can be used instead of Objective-C for iOS -- which is important for iOS because Objective-C poses an even bigger hurdle by virtue of its unfamiliar syntax. Swift wins on iOS because it competes with a language nobody wanted to learn to begin with. Even as far as familiarity goes, the only thing Swift looks familiar to (based on first impressions) is Ruby, except it uses a more familiar C-like syntax (i.e. braces). While Ruby programmers are extremely visible (especially in startup/valley crowds) there aren't that many of them -- not to mention that some have already moved on to Rust or JS. 0: [this video]

> Yet again, they admitted an important feature was missing. Again, I am not familiar with Java 8 but I suspect their implementation is horribly wrong. Admitting something is broken does not mean it sucks. See this comment: [link] Also, please read this before you wave it off: [link] > I have. I guess I have just logged more time in Java than others. Java is probably my most used language and that's saying something as I work as a TA for a Python class, use python for most personal projects, and also use many other languages. Java consumes the most time because it has the most polished toolings and standards for developers. Now they may not always be ovserved but if you stay in your own walled garden everything is all honky-dory. You will never make these mistakes if you follow basic practices in Java's naming conventions. All lower case classpaths, all uppercase class names, lower then cammel function names, etc. You'll never be able to mistake Test() for Test.test() as they are instinctivly different names. > Please tell me how to do it properly. IE, if I have a variable of type Foo that is holding a value of type Bar, how do I invoke the function with Bar instead of Foo in the signature? void something(Foo f) { if (f instanceof Bar) { (Bar-Specific commands) } (generic commands) } Or better yet use your magic want: Abstraction . Wave it around and use your super powers to move that functionality into Foo and in anything that needs a specific handling of that function, over

> why should a protocl like telnet be relevant today A lot of software uses "telnet" as in TCP sockets with \r\n and ASCII encoding. That's all telnet is and that's how a lot of data is shifted around all the time. > To learn from its mistakes? Telnet wasn't a mistake. It was an obvious step from terminals via RS232 to terminals via TCP. Also, telnet is everywhere. If you went into research and someone said "just hook into the telnet stream for $SENSOR" and you said "What's telnet" that wouldn't end well. > No, that's why you take design classes that you seem to dislike. No one in their right minds would call telnet, sending text over TCP, a bad design. It's a bad design for some things, but others it's the simplest way to do things. You can do a lot with it since it is very robust. What can go wrong with a telnet stream? 1) Client/Server drops connection to you 2) ... What else? That's a tenant of fantastic design. > Leaving aside the lack of need to know those ancient things (I say this as a heavy user of vim), you seem to conflate engineering with computer science. I don't conflate it. Everyone in industry does. I'm marketing myself to industry so I will use their terminology. Their terminology associates Computer Science with "The programmer". > There's a lot of CS that doesn't have anything to do with network protocols and UNIX programs I and most places you'd go to work in industry aren't mainly concerned with those problems. Different data structures? Great yea I'd lov