I said we can strike 5. That means I agree with you about 5.
Your argument is "it's different this time" because of reasons 1-7. I'm claiming 1,2,3,6 are not different when compared to Basic, at the time Basic was released.
Your argument is "it's different this time" because of reasons 1-7. I'm claiming 1,2,3,6 are not different when compared to Basic, at the time Basic was released.
1. was true of BASIC for a brief time in the 80's, but was never true of VB
2. Not applicable to Basic (you had to type basic programs in by hand from a book, not exactly instant), not true of VB
3. Not applicable to Basic. What does "plugin" even mean there? You still have to type it in by hand. Not true of VB
5 was true of neither as you've conceded.
6 was true of visual basic, but never true of basic- to the degree that we're talking about sophisticated GUI apps, not simplistic text based adventures or weather quizzes.
2. You can load Basic programs instantaneously. They're interpreted, and the interpreter came with the operating system or even the computer's hardware. How is JS any more instantaneous? You didn't have to type in a whole Basic program every time you wanted to run one - I'm guessing this is the confusion here.
3. There were no plugins. That's all that claim 3 ever was. I don't know how typing in a program by hand is relevant at any rate. Surely every program has to be typed in by hand, unless you're doing visual programming.
6. I thought this was about Basic itself, which did not take a team of 20 engineers four years to develop. As for applications, at the time it was really simple to program in compared to something like C.
So it comes down to 4, 5, 7. These aren't true of Basic, but they don't necessarily make JS a winner:
4. Basic programs were portable to machines that had interpreters, and there were lots of them. But sure, it probably wasn't as portable as JS, as I don't know if you could run it on a mainframe. C is a very portable language though, and always has been, so why does this mean JS wins?
5. Improvements in accessibility compared to the 80's applies to all technology. How is the disability support in JS better than other languages?
7. Home computers were IN YOUR FUCKING HOUSE! at the time Basic was popular. But non-Basic programs ran on those computers too, just like non-JS programs run on your phone. Miniaturization benefits all languages.
I'm not even saying that the features you listed are bad features, nor am I saying that JS is a bad language. I'm simply refuting your primary claim about JS superiority due to some list of features, and about how this is different than all the other times. All popular languages have their place, by definition, and JS is one of them.
And BASIC is just FORTRAN for people who couldn't program and didn't have a real computer or pubes.