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Comment by callumlocke | Hacker News Reader

Because JavaScript is the most widely used language in the world.

As a web developer, I know JavaScript very well. I have already encountered thousands of its idiosyncrasies and I am very good at making it work for me.

Therefore any tool written in JavaScript is automatically easy for me to understand and modify. If that tool could have been more elegantly written in another language, that's awesome for people who know that other language, but it's irrelevant to me. Even if I kind of know my way around the other language, I'm never going to be as effective with it as the language I use every day. And a lot of people use JavaScript every day. This is the reason why people feel the need to solve problems in JavaScript.

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But JS can't solve every problem, nor can it solve certain problems well.

I understand people feel the need to solve problems in JS because they're scared or inconvenienced by learning a new programming language.

But why not learn a new language? Having a working knowledge of C won't kill you.

edit: could you explain how JS is the most widely used language in the world?

> Having a working knowledge of C won't kill you.

I do have some knowledge of C, and I could learn more. But unless I change career, I'll always be faster and more effective in JavaScript because I think in it all day, so I'll almost always choose JS over C. I'm not disparaging anyone who uses C, just answering @faaef's question about why people "feel the need" to make everything in JavaScript – because they can, they happen to know JS very well, and because there's automatically a huge potential contributor base.

> could you explain how JS is the most widely used language in the world?

I don't know, but I assumed it's the most widely used because websites :) Also it's the most popular language on GitHub

JS is definitely the wrong language for a number of programming projects. JS lacks a number of features that other languages have... on its own, that doesn't make it a bad language, but it means it's less useful for certain projects.

Like this one. Like the POSIX API that is actually compatible with other applications.

And by that definition of used, C and Java are pretty strong competitors, seeing as every SIM card and Bluray player and so many more run Java... and then there's Linux and its embedded RTOS cousins, etc., etc., that are written in C or C++. I think embedded devices beat out JS pretty well.

I'm not talking necessarily about elegance, but performance, safety, the ability to run on embedded devices, a widely-available toolchain and so on.

Apart from that, it's great to have a favorite language, but choosing a hammer for every task does not seem like the mark of a great craftsman for me.

I believe most people in every profession are not/do not aspire to be great craftsmen. And in the end, if their tools work, nobody cares outside of their immediate colleagues.

...and herein lies the problem.

What problem? I think we need a mixture of specialists and generalists

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