I strongly disagree. There are things far, far worse than JavaScript. I would even go so far as calling it "quite decent". I like to use it for prototyping and scripting quite a bit, it can be rather efficient and the "standard library" is very decent in my eyes. It has some footguns, and certainly used to have a couple more (that are discouraged now, but still people complain and call it bad because technically, you can still use the bad parts that any linter refuses). I even really like the idea of protoype-oriented programming and find it a bit sad we lost this in favor of classes, but I guess this actually makes the language a bit easier. Disclaimer: I am not a webdev, and if I do webdev, I use TypeScript. Personally, I consider e.g. Python far worse.
And accept that both have merit. You may not like it but there's a reason languages, tools, companies, products, whatever become popular. And it isn't just because "people are idiots" or evil companies. Console wars are for teenagers.
Reminds me of the urban legend that KFC couldn't legally call itself Kentucky Fried Chicken because they were using genetically modified hens that had no heads, hence the name change to just initials.
I can't be the only one who believes the name JavaScript should die in Peace. It was and still is the worst naming of any popular programming language in existence.
You'r not the only one: Javascript makes me think of ads; Oracle of Symphony, some restaurant stuff I worked with; hard to describe the experience. Not very safe, designed so normal people are ultra dependent on paid-for support. etc But I'm not here to rant :)
I do find that request outrageous, the true objective hidden, and I still don't grasp what the fuss is about anyway; in what way does it matter does Oracle own the name?
Before being superseded by Python, wasn't JavaScript the world's most used language?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Oracle fan-boy, but why?
And doesn't Oracle own Java as well? Sure, very different languages, but hard to say the same for the trademarked names, and Java is older.
How about taking energy to do something else, something positive.
'JS' as somone said earlier, is pretty cool.
Apparently the codename for the prototype language was "Mocha", infinitely better! Even the release name "LiveScript" is much better.
They switched for cynical marketing reasons, riding the "Java" hype, and to flaunt their partnership with Sun. Well, it did make some kind of sense at the time when the scope was much smaller. They had this rough idea of an interpreted lightweight companion to Java, back when lots of backends where build with Java and it was meant to be the frontend counterpart for some limited interactivity in the client. But they never got it properly integrated and they diverged very early.
It's certainly a bold move for a private company that wants to take a behemoth like Oracle to court over something that mostly benefits themselves to solicit $200K of donations from random people in order to so. I look forward to seeing how that plays out for them.
Seems this was downvoted. Well I for one agree with you.
Looks to me as if deno wants the public goodwill, but isn't willing to put their money where their mouth is. The term "brand awareness campaign" comes to mind.
The company that took a screenshot of the nodejs website and used it as evidence for their claim of the trademark? The company that had absolutely nothing to do with nodejs? Ohh.
"ecma" doesn't feel right coming out of my mouth or in my ears. Perhaps because it's sound isn't common in the English language? I'm actually struggling to find any other words right now that sounds similar to ecma.
But to answer your question, here we all are talking about Deno. Can't say if that was their plan all along or not, but it's working.
I have always wondered why Google didn't buy Sun? They propbably were at the time (and probably still are?) the biggest corporate users of both Java and JavaScript (which, of course, don't share anything beyond the name).
I don't get the hate here. This is practically a public service and Deno doesn't have any direct or obvious material gains from this. Definitely not more then dozens of other projects (from Chrome to Node.js to Tutorial sites and any company offering something with JS)
So what if they are a VC backed company? If you perform a public service, it's fair to ask the public for money.
No one is suggesting this money would go to fund their product.
The only possibly related topic that could qualify as a public service would be abolishing trademark. As it is I'd much rather get paid for having to put up with hearing about the damn language.
> So what if they are a VC backed company? If you perform a public service
VCs have no public service - it’s an oxymoron.
Hence the “hate” though I think cynicism is the more appropriate term
The reality of finance driven organizations is that no matter what, anything that looks like public good will eventually -if not immediately- be used to capture value on behalf of capital to control
> If you perform a public service, it's fair to ask the public for money.
I think the order here is reversed: If you ask the public for money, it's fair to perform a public service. If you just do something you wanted to do anyways, and probably would have done anyways, then it might be viewed as less-than-charitable to ask others for money to help you achieve your goal for yourself (even if other people might benefit somewhat too). Especially when you are far richer (like 100+ times richer) than the people you're asking for money.
As a volunteer organizer for a weekly meetup that helps local entrepreneurs, I and my team have never "asked the public for money". Occasionally we have private companies that like what we do and throw some money our way for coffee. It turns out that passion and effort from volunteers and attendees and other members of the startup community are the critical parts of the meetup, and money is not.
So, that gets me wondering what could be done with those $200k besides pay people to get agreement on one particular word being free-er to use. For example, that would fund coffee and breakfast for the meetup for hundreds of years, perhaps even forever. Or fund plenty of other charitable causes with a direct positive impact on people.
It's PR. First the petition and now this fundraiser. Sorry but it feels more like a stunt than anything sincere otherwise they would front the money. They certainly have the funds for it.
Why do they need to ask for money from the public if they are VC-backed?
Assuming that the Deno Land Inc. company would benefit from protection from Oracle's trademark
As a member of the public I see no "material gains" from "freeing Javascript from Oracle"
But I may be biased. I do not use Javascript and avoid others' use of it as best I can. I use a different object-oriented, garbage-collected scripting language with C-like syntax that is faster than JS, and faster than Lua (not LuaJIT)
It looks more like they aren't getting the adoption that they need, so they go after theater like this, instead of giving us reasons why we should talk IT into allowing Deno in our OS images instead of Node.js.
Who cares if it is JavaScript, ECMAScript, JScript, WhateverScript.
Deno have been bankrolling this case for a pretty long time already. Winning this case will benefit everybody who are benefited by Javascript. Sound fair to ask for everyone else to pitch in.
The simple solution is to write everything (for the browser) in TypeScript instead and treat JavaScript only as the compilation target noone actually talks about. And compiling to JavaScript might also become a thing of the past with Webassembly. So, I think we shouldn't care about JavaScript as a name.
People everywhere saying ecma script is a bad name feels like oracle hired people to hate on the best alternative so that demo keeps "fighting the fight" and make oracle lawyers more rich.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with sound of ecma script (maybe it's just a bit difficult on the tongue?). And not, it doesn't read like eczema, there's absolutely nothing related with that name other than the first two and last characters, reading one and the other they are completely different. It doesn't make sense to say they are similar. Stop with the astroturfing.
Everyone I see hating on ecma script simply say it's a bad name without argumenting or say it's similar to eczema, are we 12 now?
Potentially it could cause confusion between the spec and the language. But tbh I think the mistake was to create that differentiation in the first place. Let's just join these two together and there'll be no more head scratching of what is what.
Exactly. I would just rename it to something nicer and forget about Java - it has very little to do with it nowadays anyway. A new name can even retain .js extensions like: JetScript, JoyScript, JuiceScript, JadeScript, JunoScript, whatever...
123 comments
[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadAnd accept that both have merit. You may not like it but there's a reason languages, tools, companies, products, whatever become popular. And it isn't just because "people are idiots" or evil companies. Console wars are for teenagers.
"What does JS stand for?" "It stands for itself."
I do find that request outrageous, the true objective hidden, and I still don't grasp what the fuss is about anyway; in what way does it matter does Oracle own the name? Before being superseded by Python, wasn't JavaScript the world's most used language? Don't get me wrong, I'm no Oracle fan-boy, but why? And doesn't Oracle own Java as well? Sure, very different languages, but hard to say the same for the trademarked names, and Java is older. How about taking energy to do something else, something positive. 'JS' as somone said earlier, is pretty cool.
They switched for cynical marketing reasons, riding the "Java" hype, and to flaunt their partnership with Sun. Well, it did make some kind of sense at the time when the scope was much smaller. They had this rough idea of an interpreted lightweight companion to Java, back when lots of backends where build with Java and it was meant to be the frontend counterpart for some limited interactivity in the client. But they never got it properly integrated and they diverged very early.
This is incorrect. All users of Javascript benefit.
Looks to me as if deno wants the public goodwill, but isn't willing to put their money where their mouth is. The term "brand awareness campaign" comes to mind.
That said, it does seem more than a little cheeky for a VC backed company to open up a public gofundme for this.
why deno so hung up on this? why not focus getting people to use deno instead?
But to answer your question, here we all are talking about Deno. Can't say if that was their plan all along or not, but it's working.
Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle) made the application for the trademark[1] on December 1st, 1995. The trademark was issued on May 6th, 1997.
[1]https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75026640&caseType=SERIAL_...
So what if they are a VC backed company? If you perform a public service, it's fair to ask the public for money. No one is suggesting this money would go to fund their product.
Btw, I donated.
VCs have no public service - it’s an oxymoron.
Hence the “hate” though I think cynicism is the more appropriate term
The reality of finance driven organizations is that no matter what, anything that looks like public good will eventually -if not immediately- be used to capture value on behalf of capital to control
I think the order here is reversed: If you ask the public for money, it's fair to perform a public service. If you just do something you wanted to do anyways, and probably would have done anyways, then it might be viewed as less-than-charitable to ask others for money to help you achieve your goal for yourself (even if other people might benefit somewhat too). Especially when you are far richer (like 100+ times richer) than the people you're asking for money.
As a volunteer organizer for a weekly meetup that helps local entrepreneurs, I and my team have never "asked the public for money". Occasionally we have private companies that like what we do and throw some money our way for coffee. It turns out that passion and effort from volunteers and attendees and other members of the startup community are the critical parts of the meetup, and money is not.
So, that gets me wondering what could be done with those $200k besides pay people to get agreement on one particular word being free-er to use. For example, that would fund coffee and breakfast for the meetup for hundreds of years, perhaps even forever. Or fund plenty of other charitable causes with a direct positive impact on people.
Why do they need to ask for money from the public if they are VC-backed?
Assuming that the Deno Land Inc. company would benefit from protection from Oracle's trademark
As a member of the public I see no "material gains" from "freeing Javascript from Oracle"
But I may be biased. I do not use Javascript and avoid others' use of it as best I can. I use a different object-oriented, garbage-collected scripting language with C-like syntax that is faster than JS, and faster than Lua (not LuaJIT)
Are there any down side to using deno instead of node now days?
I’m just curious since I’ve been doing deno for a few years now and haven’t missed node beyond cloning other programs.
Who cares if it is JavaScript, ECMAScript, JScript, WhateverScript.
note to self: take HN righteous indignations less seriously.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with sound of ecma script (maybe it's just a bit difficult on the tongue?). And not, it doesn't read like eczema, there's absolutely nothing related with that name other than the first two and last characters, reading one and the other they are completely different. It doesn't make sense to say they are similar. Stop with the astroturfing.
Everyone I see hating on ecma script simply say it's a bad name without argumenting or say it's similar to eczema, are we 12 now?
Potentially it could cause confusion between the spec and the language. But tbh I think the mistake was to create that differentiation in the first place. Let's just join these two together and there'll be no more head scratching of what is what.
One more reason to move away from it and finally get some sanity back in webdev.