Prev: FAQ Topic - What are object models? (2010-03-21)
Next: Video: Ryan Dahl: Node.js
From: Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn on 25 May 2010 07:28
John G Harris wrote:

> We don't want a new name for what Netscape produced. JavaScript does
> that perfectly well. (And also LiveScript).

The name "LiveScript" never made it into production, neither did "Mocha":

<http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/javascript-creator-ponders-past-
future-704>
| Eich: That's right. It was all within six months from May till December
| (1995) that it was Mocha and then LiveScript. And then in early December,
| Netscape and Sun did a license agreement and it became JavaScript. And the
| idea was to make it a complementary scripting language to go with Java,
| with the compiled language.

Netscape Navigator 2.0, the first Web browser to support client-side
scripting, which was _JavaScript_ 1.0, was released in 1996-03. Best to
forget about the other two except in historical matters; they were dropped
for good reasons.

> We don't want a new name for what Microsoft produces. JScript does that
> perfectly well.
>
> We don't want a new name for what Adobe produces. ActionScript does that
> perfectly well.

ACK

> No, what we want is a name to mean any or all of these languages without
> having to give a long list of names, and without misusing a trade mark.

"ECMAScript implementations" not only fits those requirements very well but
is by comparison a very precise term (that the vendors use themselves)
without the possibility for ambiguity (but the possibility for both
extensions, like "conforming ECMAScript implementation", "implementation of
ECMAScript Ed. 3/5", and abbreviation/acronym like "ES" for "ECMAScript").
It is hard to see why some still refuse to use it.

> var a = 42;
> is legal in javascript;

And that is as unwise a choice as possible. "javascript" is the most
ambiguous of all possible choices as most people do not know the difference
between "javascript"/"Javascript" and "JavaScript". Instead, they subsume
all client-side scripting, native and host objects, under the name
"javascript"/"Javascript", which is not what it means to its inventors. And
there is no way to extend or abbreviate it without creating further
confusion: "js" does not work, neither does "jscript" as it is already used
(different letter case, but see above); "js5" -- forget it.

"javascript" adds to the increasing script-kiddishness in discussions
("let's have a catchy name for that, we don't care if it fits the bill").
It is the result of the utterly arrogant opinion that the FAQ of a Usenet
newsgroup could unambiguously and globally define the meaning of a term
invented for it. I don't want it.

> not just in JavaScript, JScript, ActionScript, and, oh, what does Opera
> call it?

Opera call theirs both "JavaScript" and "ECMAScript", with "JavaScript"
being prevalent with regard to DOM scripting and "ECMAScript" with regard to
standards compliance.


PointedEars
--
var bugRiddenCrashPronePieceOfJunk = (
navigator.userAgent.indexOf('MSIE 5') != -1
&& navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mac') != -1
) // Plone, register_function.js:16
From: Eric Bednarz on 25 May 2010 11:24
Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars(a)web.de> writes:

> Netscape Navigator 2.0, the first Web browser to support client-side
> scripting, which was _JavaScript_ 1.0, was released in 1996-03.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW

--
λ
From: Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn on 25 May 2010 12:56
Eric Bednarz wrote:

> Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars(a)web.de> writes:
>> Netscape Navigator 2.0, the first Web browser to support client-side
>> scripting, which was _JavaScript_ 1.0, was released in 1996-03.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW

Well, I for one am glad that Mosaic and ultimately JavaScript prevailed :)


PointedEars
--
Prototype.js was written by people who don't know javascript for people
who don't know javascript. People who don't know javascript are not
the best source of advice on designing systems that use javascript.
-- Richard Cornford, cljs, <f806at$ail$1$8300dec7(a)news.demon.co.uk>
From: Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn on 25 May 2010 14:49
Jeremy J Starcher wrote:

> On Tue, 25 May 2010 19:13:07 +0200, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>> Jeremy J Starcher wrote:
>>> Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>>>> Eric Bednarz wrote:
>>>>> Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars(a)web.de> writes:
>>>>>> Netscape Navigator 2.0, the first Web browser to support client-side
>>>>>> scripting, which was _JavaScript_ 1.0, was released in 1996-03.
>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW
>>>> Well, I for one am glad that Mosaic and ultimately JavaScript
>>>> prevailed :)
>>> Would we have been better off with Javascript[1] or should it have
>>> remained mostly Scheme?
>> Mu.
>
> According to everything that I have read, Brendan Eich was going to
> implement Scheme in the browser.
>
> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/04/popularity.html
>
> Although Scheme was never actually used as the browser scripting
> language, it was considered as an option.

You misunderstand. Brendan Eich tells there that he “was recruited to
Netscape with the promise of 'doing Scheme' in the browser”. But he also
says that “whether that language should be Scheme was an open question”.
And then “The /diktat/ from upper engineering management was that the
language must 'look like Java'. That ruled out Perl, Python, and Tcl, along
with Scheme.”

> Although I can't find the origin of the quote, JavaScript has been called
> "Scheme in C's clothing."

“Lisp in C's clothing” can be found on Crockford's site -- “JavaScript: The
World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language”:

<http://javascript.crockford.com/javascript.html>

> Hence, I'll rephrase my question: "Would we have been better off had
> Scheme been implemented as the Netscape scripting language, instead of
> Live Script?"

I do not think so. (And it is still _LiveScript_, but I know about your
disability now and try to remember that.)

>>> [1] Though I really think it should have retained its name as
>>> Livescript (or was that Live script?)
>> _LiveScript_ (can't you read?).
>
> Considering that I am dyslexic, I believe that I read fairly well.
> Remembering where non-standard capitalization goes, however, falls under
> a different category entirely. You, of all people, surprise me in
> confusing the ability to read with the ability to remember.

Sheesh, you cannot remember what you have read two postings, less than 6
hours ago, in the *same* thread?


PointedEars
--
Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on
a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web,
when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another
computer, another word processor, or another network. -- Tim Berners-Lee
From: John G Harris on 26 May 2010 11:38
On Tue, 25 May 2010 at 13:28:12, in comp.lang.javascript, Thomas
'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>John G Harris wrote:

<snip>
>
>> No, what we want is a name to mean any or all of these languages without
>> having to give a long list of names, and without misusing a trade mark.
>
>"ECMAScript implementations"

'ECMAScript implementations' is not suitable for two reasons.

First, 'ECMAScript implementation' means a compiler, not the language
that it acts on. To see this, consider the words in section 6 of the ES3
& ES5 standards :
"Conforming ECMAScript implementations are not required to perform
any normalisation of text" ...

A language cannot translate source text, even where translation is
permitted.

Second, it becomes difficult to talk about the code constructs specified
in the standard if you make 'ECMAScript' include things not described in
the standard.

You need to propose a better term than that.

John
--
John Harris
 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2
Prev: FAQ Topic - What are object models? (2010-03-21)
Next: Video: Ryan Dahl: Node.js