I know the guys that did the iPad work for the coatchex system. I questioned then along similar lines. I realized I wasn't thinking wide enough. I don't want to speak about something that might have been off the record... But let me pose this. You can get information from anything. That information may be more valuable (to others) than you may think.
This, so much. I can't believe companies are pushing to port everything to one of the worst language in existence. Okay, I get the benefits of easy deployment, but what about performance, debugging, ecosystem, typechecking, compile-time optimizations, general engineering, etc.?
I don't see what makes Javascript the worst language in existence? Some of its cruft is being removed (mainly the horrible var scope) with ES6/7. I think some future revision of JS that removes most the cruft (like ; insertion) will be awesome.
I wouldn't call it the worst language in existence by any means, but it does have some things I find extremely irritating - lack of a decent module system, overly verbose at times (like when creating anonymous functions), sneaky silent type conversions that still get me from time to time (sorting a list of integers - oops, lexicographical, not numerical ordering).
Having said that, it also has a lot of cool features and I use it every day. Most of the time, I find it a decent enough experience.
Yes, mandatory semicolons are good, looking forward to it. People are also discovering best practices in JavaScript, which is also good. In lots of regards, however, it will always be inferior to languages that are thought through from the very beginning, and tons of headaches could be saved with just a little more investment in proper environments.
So we should wait for browser vendors to agree on a new next generation language for the web and wait until everyone updates to a browser that supports it?
Like it or not these developments are turning JS into a bytecode for the web. Maybe one day there will be other language options but why not invest in making the best of what we do have?
So we should wait for browser vendors to agree on a new next generation language for the web and wait until everyone updates to a browser that supports it?
No, we should grab the first thing available and run with it, making sporadic additions and optimizations to do cool-thing-of-he-day, completely ignoring overall architecture and neglecting original purpose behind the technology we use. Next stop: compiler that will translate C code into Excel macros.
There are apparently some readers who are abusing the down votes. The hackernews voting system is not a "like" voting system. It is to sort out inappropriate comments and value informative and pertinent comments.
What would you invest in? I'm currently working on a small engine for an indy game using JS for the front and backend and am interested in alternatives that are perhaps more future proof.
Well, I don't know what you really mean by "future proof". JavaScript will probably remain the lowest common denominator, for years to come, so from that perspective, there's no safer bet.
However, for people who want to have an edge, as developers, working in their language of choice is one sure way to get it.
There are many different developments to make that happen, like languages that compile to JavaScript, or binaries that run in the browser via NaCL; I think there's a lot of potential there.
... JavaScript was not a language designed with software engineering in mind; that much should be clear. If you can choose the proper language for the task at hand, instead of simply being forced into JS, you'll be ahead.
Good idea but I think part of the point of the article is that the job will change. So to "Outline exactly what you need the developer to do, and have them send in proof that they can actually do it" is, again, to attract people with 'experience' that happens to fit that particular job description, rather than talent.
It's not that novel and it seems like there are quite a few companies that do something like this. The main problem with this approach is that you have probably screened out good software engineers that don't have a portfolio of public code they can share.
Companies should also be very clear about what they're actually looking for. If you're looking for "world class" talent, don't complain about a "programmer shortage".
The fact that there were 600 valid applications (the women applying had code examples to show), basically busts the "programmer shortage" myth.
There are a whole lot of people who can program computers, and who could, with some investment, become valuable assets.
Upvote, beacuse I see myself as a descent programmer and my github account has been idle for ages.
Not to mention that holding a full time job and my wanting to spend time with my wife and kid leave very little time to maintain a blog (which I don't) or contribute to OSS (as much as I can, but next to nothing compared to other readers of this site).
Github can sometimes be a lot of copy and paste from either other repos or Stack Overflow or tutorials and such. For blogs, many very talented developers don't have one (or don't keep it up to date), and so it's very difficult to determine and verify ability just from an online presence.
Eh. I still think GitHub can be useful, it just might take a little more time. Instead of simply scanning the list of projects, take a quick peak at the commit logs for a few of them. It should be pretty clear based on the workflow if it's just a copy & paste job, or if the developer is actually working.
Someone could certainly game that, but it's a stretch...
> It'd be fascinating to know what they're working on now.
They're almost certainly not working with technology that's "ahead by 10 years", as their recruiters like to advertise: Their hardware is basically standard stuff shipped by Sun (... I guess that's Oracle now), running mostly Java.
Yea, coat checks and and t-shirts ... I can feel the impact.