Cough, AJAX

[Andy Wardley]

Matt S Trout wrote:
> Prototype is a joke

As are most of the Javascript libraries I've looked at.  :-(

I suspect that Javascript is currently on the bleeding edge of the 
weenie curve, just as Perl was this time last decade until PHP stole its 
crown.

Javascript is "Good Thing" in that it allows you to get the job done and 
get it done quickly.  Like Perl it is pragmatic, not dogmatic.

Unfortunately that makes it easily accessible to those web monkeys who 
wouldn't recognise good practice in software design if it was a Special 
Operations Badger holding a loaded assault rifle to their head screaming:

    Go on punk, add one more dirty little hack to your Javascript
    library and I swear I'll blow your damn head off faster than you
    say "Where's my crack team of fighting ferrets when I really need
    them?"

So the bar is lowered and the monkeys jump onto the bandwagon.

They've already sullied the reputation of Perl (lots of Perl is 
unreadable nonsense therefore all Perl is unreadable nonsense) and are 
working hard to have the same effect on PHP (most PHP applications are 
festering snot-buckets full of gaping security holes large enough to 
drive a small truck through, therefore all PHP applications are FSBs 
full of GSHs large enough to DASTT).  Javascript is already in the 
firing line if the evidence of Prototype et al is anything to go by.

Having said all that, the great thing about Open Source (and the source 
for Javascript is always open) is that you can find out what it's doing, 
how it's doing it, and then build up your own JS library which does what 
you want without that which you don't.  Still, it would be much nicer to 
  be able to go to the JS equivalent of CPAN and download something that 
just works...

A