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Cover image for 🚀 5 Reasons Why You Should Bet on JavaScript in 2020

🚀 5 Reasons Why You Should Bet on JavaScript in 2020

Roberto Hernandez on February 12, 2020

Originally published on Medium Looking to learn to code? Or are you curious to learn a new programming language? You’ve arrived at the right piece...
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kunal__kashyap profile image
Kunal Kashyap

Rightly said - You have the power to build cross-platform apps for the front end, back end, desktop, and mobile.

In addition to these platforms there are Smart Tv and VR also which are being built on Javascript. It's next level language.

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Roberto Hernandez

Thanks for reading and also for sharing your thoughts!

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kayis profile image
K

"Because it works asynchronous, but every request requires a work synchronously."

Could you elaborate?

As far as I know, the success of Node.js came from the fact that JS is inherently asynchronous and that is what's needed on the backend.

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Alberto Talone

Rightly said, but the only thing I disagree with you is about back-end.
At enterprise level I always prefer to use Java (Spring and its ecosystem) for stability. For little projects it's really good, in general I use node.js servers when I need to create small server for sending mock-data to my front-end app.

About cross-platform framework for apps take a look to Ionic if you are familiar with Angular.

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Keff

Definitely agree with the back-end stuff, I usually go for Symfony or API Platform.

I would recommend checking out React Native and Flutter as alternatives to Ionic, I've had bad experiences working with Ionic, although it is a great tool, the now support React and Vue as well as Angular!

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kayis profile image
K

To me, JavaScript feels a bit like Lua in game engines.

These engines are written high-performance languages that go down to the metal and you can script your "game logic" in Lua when you need more customization.

The same goes for JS in many places.

If you start something new, chances are good there is a way to use JavaScript for it.

Firefox, Chrome, React-Native, AWS Lambda, Electron, TensorFlow, all systems that come out-of-the-box with JavaScript support.

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enzo profile image
Enzo

Always bet on the Web

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Don Alfons Nisnoni

I just learned programming from 2015. in my opinion, javascript is very good indeed. depending on your needs. you can create a web server quickly on the node, but that's not the best choice. I usually use Node for a prototype. Yes, there are so many programming languages ​​nowadays, and most of us are confused about choosing. But each has advantages and disadvantages. So use the language that best suits your needs.

Good article... Thank you...

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Mikael

Javascript is the cornerstone of everything built for the web! (and more if your framework compiles to different supports).

However it might be useful for new developers to also learn different programming languages if they are unsure of where they want to be in the future (python & dart for example).

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Jashua

Are there any disadvantages to use JavaScript for everything? I was hoping to see that point covered, it's an honest question since I don't know that language but I'm aware of the hype around it

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kayis profile image
K • Edited

It doesn't have the best performance characteristics.

Also, JavaScript is dynamically typed. This can lead to some problems in the long run.

I'd recommend Rust or OCaml/Reason if these points are important.

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Daniel Schulz

Of course. Javascript in web development is used in places where precursing technologies were way better fit.
HTML is arguably better than JS at displaying content. Browsers are more efficient just displaying styled hypertext compared to executing a heavy framework to render a virtual document.
Backend-wise javascript can have some serious disadvantages compared to other languages, such as weak types, automatic garbage collection, etc... Most of these things can be worked around, but all those workarounds add complexity (which I'd argue is the single most important problem in software development).
Javascript is a very mighty language, but it may not be the best tool for every problem it's being used on.
If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.