Amiga music-making

[Matt Seil]

Comments in-line...

On 4/17/2022 9:59 AM, Peter Korsten wrote:
> Hey Jammer,
>
>> I still don't know what to make of JavaScript after all these years.
>>
>> I mean, how can anyone big up a language like JS that is so "good" 
>> they had to make another entire language/interpreter to shove between 
>> the developer and "the code". TypeScripts very existence is a 
>> testament to how horrible it is to work with large JS projects.
>>
>
> JavaScript allows mediocre developers to write code that works most of 
> the time. It doesn't complain about trivialities such as type safety.
>
> One thing I've learned in my career is that there are just really, 
> really a lot of mediocre programmers around, who will never rise to 
> expert level, because they're not weird enough (they cannot think like 
> a computer) and because of business pressures (it had to be completed 
> two weeks ago).

I've found that *most* developers fall into that second category, myself 
included.  I get hyperfocused on expansive solutions that solve problems 
long-term, and part of why I hated being a "security oriented developer" 
as opposed to an "analyst doing appsec" is that business pressures 
always triumph in the long run.  Companies will always opt for the 
band-aid fix that is fragile as opposed to the deeper design 
modifications... I assume this has to be far worse in embedded systems 
where many design choices are taken away from you by the time you're the 
line programmer solving an actual customer issue. I lost interest in 
javascript when I found out that there were literally six official ways 
to declare a function.  And when you compare them side-by-side you 
realize that they were invented purely to allow programmers who didn't 
understand the importance of simple, well-defined function interfaces to 
just get work done.  It's almost as bad as Perl.  (shots fired, I know...)

In the longer conversation, being an appsec analyst takes me away from 
having to write code to deadlines (which I just can't stand for the 
noted reason) but now takes me away from working on learning languages 
more deeply as I'm basically stuck all the time at teaching new 
developers the same 10-15 programming mistakes over and over again.

One almost thinks that the state of the industry is there by design.

>
>> This all day long. Fire up Node and start a *tiny* project and it'll 
>> install hundreds of megabytes of packages. It's terrifying in so many 
>> ways.
>>
>
> Ah yes, fun times. In my previous job, the focus was shifting from 
> Java and some .NET to full-on .NET and front-end. There are some 
> reasons for dropping Java in Malta, but I decided that moving on was 
> the better option for me. I just don't enjoy it, mostly because 
> TypeScript is like putting lipstick on a pig. It's a much better 
> looking pig, but it's still a pig.

I feel for ya here.  Java Dev mostly by accident but there's always 
something about coding in Javascript that seems incomplete, and I think 
it's precisely because of the lack of a type system. I came of age 
during JUnit becoming dominant and I grew accustomed to never writing 
code I couldn't unit test, and that contributes as well to my dislike 
for JavaScript.  (hate is too harsh, but I don't like it.)


>
> - Peter
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