The problem with Javascript

Let me open this by saying that I like JavaScript. The syntax is comfortable for a lot of people and it lets you do all kinds of funky stuff because functions are first class objects and prototype based classes. It also enjoys an extremely wide install base because it is in almost every browser people use. I believe that it has a bad reputation mostly because it has suffered from years of poor and differing implementations. I also think it bears the brunt of having a variety of DOMs (These days IE vs. everybody else) associated with it; much the same way that I think C++ has a bad reputation because a lot of people's experience with C++ began and ended with MFC.

But there is one problem JavaScript has that was clarified to me after reading this critique of Google Closure. The problem, in a nutshell, is that the developer has to act as an optimizing compiler in many instances. Looking at most of the critiques, they revolve around optimizations that most people in the 21st century are either accustomed to having taken care of for them, or their computing power is so great compared to what they do that they don't care. At this point an interpreted language in a browser is handicapped in both of these areas.

Looking at the list of critiques, slow loops because you access a property on every loop check, slow case statements and dealing with multiple types of strings are all things that most developers don't have to worry about anymore. The problems with the code in the library and more efficient ways to do the same thing cover a large part of the post. That you can write many paragraphs on this sort of thing and that these optimizations are necessary is indicative that implementations of the language still has plenty of room for improvement. The concatenation of "" to a value to make it a string more efficiently than using String() is, to me, the most egregious example of this. (somevalue + "").replace() may be fast, but it sure is ugly to look at.

The author at one point even takes a jab at Google, saying their time may have been better spent just writing proper JavaScript instead of making the investment in making Chrome's JavaScript performance better. I'm guessing this is tongue in cheek, wry humor. Otherwise the implication is that JavaScript is fine on the performance front. As long as the programmer has to perform the sorts of optimization hacks described in the above post, that is simply not the case.