Wednesday July 8, 2020; 9:16 AM EDT
I read a tweet yesterday that showed what the author thought was a cool feature, labels in JavaScript. Labels are 1/2 of goto statements, which we know are harmful to readability and maintainability. #- I'm pretty sure when I try to grok someone's code that uses this feature, it'll be hard to figure out how it works.#
- I've been developing software for a long time. The functionality for users is always at the top of my mind. Getting software rock solid and ideally not requiring any maintenence, that's what I'm aiming for. #
- I'm never thinking about how I can use some new cool feature in the language. I want my code to be as boring and predictable as possible. To look exactly like what it does. Sometimes I get there. #
- I'm using software that I wrote 30 years ago right now, as I write this. That's pretty good for standing the test of time. #
- Anyway, I'm thinking the right thing to do for JavaScript is to define a profile, a subset of the language, which if you stick to it, will enhance maintainability and readability, and therefore is more likely to work. #
- An example, right now I can think of three syntaxes for defining a function. The profile would allow one. #
- function hello () {return ("hello")}#
- const hello = function () {return ("hello")}#
- const hello = () => {return ("hello")}#
- I would like to see all example code stick to the profile. Of course once there was one such profile, there would be N. But at least simplifying the language would be up for discussion.#
- What would I call my profile? #
- Something like Really Simple JavaScript. 😄#