People usually have a love-hate relationship with JavaScript. It's got its beauty and its unavoidable quirks. We're all familiar with them. We can't deny that it's been an absolute powerhouse for the web, though.
You'll always find Js in the top 10 or even top 5 lists of most popular programming languages. It's also the #1 topic on dev.to!
But what if all of that suddenly went, like, POOF! ๐ป
Now now, where's this coming from?
First of all, special thanks to @technoglot for the inspiration!
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Her article asked this simple question: What would your tech stack look like if JavaScript didn't exist?
I'm a webdeveloper through and through. Naturally, I'd start unpacking all CSS-only solutions! However, I started thinking more about the implications of JavaScript's death, like...
โ Comment below answering the following question
If JavaScript stopped existing, what language do you think should replace it?
Now, I understand that some programming languages aren't quite ready for things like DOM manipulation and such. Imagine these things would be implemented into said languages.
Or perhaps you have a better version of JavaScript in mind? ๐ฎโ Let me know!
Top comments (92)
I would imagine one of the old school alternatives to JS would have appeared, Flash, WPF / SIlverlight, ActiveX, VBScript.
And if none of them won I am sure we as developers would have come up with workarounds etc.
I mean I created an animation without JavaScript, CSS or images recently, so I am pretty sure we would have adapted somehow as long as we had HTML (or yet again, a close alternative)!
But Flash ActionScript was ECMAScript... and JavaScript.. is ECMAScript
Well that is fair enough, I mean it is 10+ years since I played with Flash and so my memory obviously didnโt connect the dots!
Fun fact; ES4 was, partially, implemented in Flash, but JavaScript skipped that version.
the-real-story-behind-es4
Shameless plug, but I take it! :p Your post was absolutely genius and I still think about it! Next up you're gonna make an entire framework that uses no HTML, CSS, or JS or something. ๐คฃ
It's hard for me to imagine the web would revert back to these oldies. There's a good reason why some of them aren't even supported on browsers any longer, haha. But hey, who knows!
I mean it was so silly I had to share it. But yeah a bit of a shameless plug I admit!
I am building a website that only developers can use...watch this space for that one ๐คฃ๐คฃ๐คฃ
The browser only understand JavaScript so noting can really replace it for frontend design lots of interactions would no longer be posible or be really painfull to do with just css, and checkbox hacks, for the backend it would just be python
Hence my additional text in the post saying that features like DOM manipulation and browser support would be implemented into whatever language you have in mind. ๐
I saw that but it remembers me the hell we had to pass in the 90s Browser support for Javascript got a lot better over the years (So did Javascript it self) but at the start, it was a huge mess, everyone, doing their own thing, new Javascript features support being slow or having a ton of barely readably hacks in Javascript/CSS so a lot of people resorted to something called Flash that was kinda on the level that is React today, if not bigger, that had its own huge issues with security and accessibility. So it would be really hard to imagine a perfect world that whatever program language would work perfectly and the same in every single browser and on every single device without all the pitfalls that Javascript fix over the years :)
Obvious choice is python as there are already mature web libraries like flask, but my new favorite stack is using lambdas like a normal server. If you go that route you can write them in Java, Go, PowerShell, Node. js, C#, Python, and Ruby. I'm working on a project right now, I wrote the server in node as an (aws) api gateway lambda proxy, without using any libraries. I eventually decided to rewrite it as a node/express server, and it's kind-of badass. The most cost efficient option I can imagine while also effortlessly scaling to meet extremely high demand. Lambda can scale up to 1000 concurrent connections, in theory you would need 125 8 core ec2 boxes to match the "multi-threaded" processing power. That's a pretty bloated estimate as there are other variables that will slow down lambdas, but you get the idea. The second reason I love this system is deployment bliss. It's fast to launch stacks with cloudformation when the heaviest thing it has to do is update a single lambda. This means you can build continuous delivery/integration automation into your dev tooling (github actions), you can quickly launch "staging" stacks, removing the need for a blue/green type system. Updates are immediate and rolling, meaning you don't have to launch the new task before stopping the old task to achieve zero downtime. Ok I'm done geeking out on my new serverless server design.
Python is half as elegant as ruby with twice the overhead, and less shiny
I'm not getting in the middle of a python vs ruby debate, mostly because I don't care lol. There is nothing wrong with either language but devs will always swear their language is best because it worked well for their specific need.
This is wrong on all 3 points lol
Wow, we got a Lambda lover here! ๐ Happy to hear that you found a stack that feels right to you! I've never quite looked into AWS before, but I probably should.
Ha. I've deployed aws ecs in production for years, it really depends on your apps needs. It's been my experience to make a good serverless app you have to write a lot of your own devops tooling. But once that's in place, the serverless nature alleviates all the hardest pain points surrounding scaling, versioning, and zero downtime deployment infrastructure.
My first thought was PHP, which I think is next-level Stockholm Syndrome compared to JS! ๐คฃ It's giving me physical pain just imagining it.
On the front-end, pretty much anything if we count on WASM (which is still not that much used in the production but definitely will be in the future).
Languages rarely get replaced. There are tons of COBOL code out there in the wild which couldn't be replaced because many huge bank systems rely on it. You can't just go and rewrite it in something else.
Python, PHP can replace JavaScript.
BUT DAD WILL BE DAD LOL
On a serious note though, I think a lot of languages like python, C#, java can be great successors.
As I believe.
Hence It's important but so was Internet Explorer, If you can feel me.
Thanks to @technoglot , I really thought about that after she cleverly tricked us all.
Correct me if I am wrong, just my first thoughts.
have this solutions:
they abstract javascript does not replace it
Thanks for sharing! I'm sure some people who prefer to code in these languages could make use out of this.
Do you know, you can embed an ActiveX control on the webpage?
All you need is Internet Explorer 5.0, and it doesn't involve JavaScript.
But then, if you have Internet Explorer 5.0, you can run Microsoft VBScript.
Does that matter? The question isn't asking about what you'd use if Javascript fizzled out due to old age, it's a genie-in-a-bottle hypotherical.
I don't particularly like PHP, but it's not going away any time soon...
Laravel was the best in teaching me good PHP. PHP was how I got started. Oh the days when you would submit a form to a php handler file that could just send emails directly...
At the moment, based on the agency I currently work for, I'd be using PHP. Why, you ask? Because that's what I do at the moment.
I'll occasionally break out the Javascript if it's needed, and I find it quite fun to be fair, but I wouldn't be particularly heartbroken if it disappeared overnight.
A very reasonable answer! PHP is still very relevant nowadays, so it's definitely not too far-fetched that it'd just take over again.