Keep Betting On JS

Brendan Eich's famous quip, "Always bet on JavaScript", revels in JS's history of naysayers predicting that we'd eventually reach a point where JS couldn't grow to meet the demands of modern development; it turns out those have always been bad bets.

It's safe to say JS is no longer trying to prove itself. It has arrived.

But where is it headed, and what does that mean for us?

Transcript

1. "The best way to predict the
   future is to invent it."

   --Alan Kay
   

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2. brief history lesson
   (of American spaceflight)
   and
   incomplete!
   ^
   credit: David Hasan
   

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3. Mercury (Atlas)
   credit: David Hasan
   

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4. Gemini (Titan)
   credit: David Hasan
   

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5. Apollo (Saturn)
   credit: David Hasan
   

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6. lots of baby steps
   credit: David Hasan
   

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7. Brendan Eich
   

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8. Keep Betting On JavaScript
   Kyle Simpson
   getify
   

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9. another brief history
   (of my journey into JavaScript)
   

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16. cheating: Flash
    

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17. $("#menu")
    

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18. flXHR
    

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19. LABjs
    

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22. There, I fixed it for you.
    "You Don't Know JS" books
    

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23. lots of
    baby steps
    

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24. totally not a history lesson
    (of JavaScript the language)
    

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25. ES-early
    

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26. ES1/ES2
    

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27. ES3
    

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28. ES4 (aka ActionScript3)
    

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29. E4X (totally not ES4)
    

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30. ES5
    

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31. ES6 (aka ES2015)
    

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32. ES2016 (aka ES7)
    

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33. ES2017 (aka ES8)
    

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34. ES2018 (aka ES9)
    

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35. ES2019 (aka ES10)
    

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36. ...blah, blah...
    

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37. best progress
    is incremental
    

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38. place
    your
    bets?
    

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41. PWA
    

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42. PWA
    

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43. ...a good bet
    open collaboration
    

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46. language
    machine
    

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48. incremental
    open
    always good?
    

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49. language
    

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50. code is

    human communication
    

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51. lingua franca
    

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52. multi-paradigm
    

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53. declarative
    

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54. compat
    

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55. not...
    - slow
    - sloppy
    - buggy
    - inconsistent
    

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56. coming soon to a
    JavaScript near
    you
    ...probably...maybe
    

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57. class fields
    

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58. private fields
    

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59. private methods
    

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60. optional chaining
    

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61. readable numbers
    

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62. BigInt
    

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63. from 10-days to now...
    

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64. machine
    

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65. assembly
    

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66. increased demands
    

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67. Proxy
    

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68. TypedArray/DataView
    

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69. shared memory!?!
    

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70. shared memory!?!
    

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71. shared memory!?!
    

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72. Atomics
    

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74. sourcemaps
    

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75. sourcemaps
    Problems:
    - stack traces
    - watch expressions
    

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76. TypeScript
    

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77. macros
    

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79. Tom Dale
    tomdale.net/2017/09/compilers-
    are-the-new-frameworks/
    

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80. experimentation
    in the wild?
    yes! eh, not so much :(
    

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81. asm.js
    

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83. WebAssembly
    

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85. language
    machine
    a tale of...
    ...two JavaScripts
    

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86. language
    machine
    so far...
    ...decent bets
    

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87. language
    machine
    humans
    where's your bet?
    

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