JavaScript for the Haters

Key Takeaways

JavaScript an embarrassing toy language used exclusively to build things it's not supposed to it was created by Brendan Ike in 1995 who was given requirements to build a language like Java but for words it only took him seven days to execute flawlessly it became an overnight dumpster fire but really hit the fan in 2005 when Ryan Dahl made the Epic mistake of bringing JavaScript to the server with node.js just like Alfred Nobel and dynamite he would go on to apologize for his invention many years later and it's my fault and I'm very sorry the language is designed for only one use case to annoy people with browser pop-ups but today it's used to build memory hogging desktop apps with electron janky mobile apps with react native and unreliable apis with express.js no matter what you're trying to build there are hundreds of different game-changing next-gen libraries to get the job done that's because whenever a JavaScript developer encounters a problem it will instinctively create a brand new framework and upload it to GitHub with a bunch of emojis in the readme in fact there are so many npm packages that Al Gore is now predicting the Arctic will be ice free by 2013 you have stolen my dreams in my childhood unlike languages people actually like JavaScript doesn't have a mascot but they are working with David Cronenberg to design one it's a Loosely typed language and by that I mean completely detached from reality when you add an array to an object obviously it returns a string that says object object now switch the order of the operands and predictably it returns zero if you want a good laugh for yourself try adding two objects together you'll get object object object object now with that knowledge what do you think two arrays will equal obviously an empty string that makes total sense because the number zero is equivalent to an empty array and also equivalent to a string of zero and that means the only possible same conclusion is that a string of zero is also equivalent to an empty array but amazingly it's not everybody knows you never go full retire it got this way because Netscape did a focus group in the 90s with some homeless web developers they found on the street who thought two plus two should equal 22 and of course that's why 2 minus two equals zero when a language is this bad and this popular at the same time it creates an ecosystem where libraries like is odd which does exactly what the name implies can get over 400 down or no 400 000 downloads per week the fun thing about packages is that there's multiple module systems like common JS and esm so you never know if the package you're installing is actually going to work now if you do manage to build something with JavaScript it'll probably never see the light of day because then you have to learn module bundling with a tool like webpack and it's just not worth it man this has been my cathartic release from over 10 years of JavaScript development despite its problems it's evolved into an awesome language in 2022 and I love programming with it today is Thanksgiving and I'm extremely thankful for JavaScript because it puts food on my family if you want to master the basics all this reverse psychology should motivate you to buy my JavaScript course and if you don't buy it I won't make any money thanks for watching and I will see you in the next one assuming I'm not entirely canceled after this video