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From: Jeremy J Starcher on 25 May 2010 13:08
On Tue, 25 May 2010 18:56:35 +0200, 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?


[1] Though I really think it should have retained its name as Livescript
(or was that Live script?)
From: Jeremy J Starcher on 25 May 2010 14:06
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. Although I can't find the
origin of the quote, JavaScript has been called "Scheme in C's clothing."

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?"

>> [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.
From: Jeremy J Starcher on 25 May 2010 15:15
On Tue, 25 May 2010 20:49:37 +0200, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:

> Jeremy J Starcher wrote:
> 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.”

Perhaps I have misunderstood that. I have interpreted that as a 'bait-
and-switch' so that Eich believed it would be doing Scheme in the
browser, then once he was on board the /diktat/ came down that it had
'look like Java'.


(I won't even try to pretend that history Crockford presents is cannon,
but he does indicate that the 'must look like Java' came after the powers
that be saw Scheme syntax.)

I recently read 'Speeding the Net' but it had very little do say about
the browser's scripting language.

http://www.amazon.com/Speeding-Net-Netscape-Challenged-Microsoft/
dp/0871137097

>> 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>

Ah... that is it. Thank you.

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