Comment by JimDabell
5 years ago
> The point is this small extension to JS grammar lets you…
If that’s the point, why are you telling people it’s JavaScript? You can make that point just fine without starting arguments.
Saying “This is an extension to JavaScript” is fine. Saying “This is JavaScript” starts arguments. What is your goal here?
> I hope the JSX spec is added to the standard sometime to stop this stupid debate.
But you are starting this stupid debate by telling people it’s JavaScript when it isn’t. If you are tired of people pointing this out when you call it JavaScript, why do you do it? There seems to be absolutely nothing to gain from that except “a stupid debate”.
> Until you realize what JSX is
I know what JSX is. I’ve written plenty of JSX.
> you don't realize the full potential it has over templates.
We are not talking about the value of JSX, merely whether it is JavaScript or not. JSX could cure cancer, but it still wouldn’t be JavaScript.
> If that’s the point, why are you telling people it’s JavaScript? You can make that point just fine without starting arguments.
First, I say it's JS because it is. Just as decorators are JS. By being an extension of JS it is JS. The two are mutually inclusive.
Second, I didn't want to start an argument, I wanted to call out the very wrong blog post, how it referenced React not JSX, how the spec is an extension of JS, explain the limitations, etc. Until now it was more of a debate. Now it's a bit more of a semantics debate unfortunately.
> But you are starting this stupid debate by telling people it’s JavaScript when it isn’t. If you are tired of people pointing this out when you call it JavaScript, why do you do it? There seems to be absolutely nothing to gain from that except “a stupid debate”.
Actually if you go up the comment chain you'll see I didn't start this debate. If you're tired, just don't participate.
> We are not talking about the value of JSX, merely whether it is JavaScript or not. JSX could cure cancer, but it still wouldn’t be JavaScript.
Oh but we are, again if you go up the comment chain, it's being compared to Svelte's template system, that's how it got brought up, and that's usually why this topic gets brought up. You don't have to create a whole template system. You just use nested functions. To use pretty brackets it needs a small extension of the spec. You don't have to come up with a loop system, a conditional system, etc.
> By being an extension of JS it is JS. The two are mutually inclusive.
This is absurd. If JSX were JavaScript, JavaScript wouldn’t need to be extended to include JSX. The whole point of it being an extension is that JavaScript doesn’t include it, therefore JSX extends it. If JSX were JavaScript, then JavaScript wouldn’t need to be extended. The two are mutually exclusive.
> > We are not talking about the value of JSX, merely whether it is JavaScript or not. JSX could cure cancer, but it still wouldn’t be JavaScript.
> Oh but we are, again if you go up the comment chain
In the context of “Is JSX JavaScript?”, the value of JSX is irrelevant. Whether JSX is useless, useful, or amazing makes zero difference to the question of whether JSX is JavaScript or not.
You can still go around telling people JSX is great. It doesn’t have to be JavaScript for you to do that. People telling you that it isn’t JavaScript aren’t telling you that it’s worthless. They are just telling you that it isn’t JavaScript.
Are decorators JS? Answer that question and I'll respond to the rest of your comment.
We're talking in circles a bit so I'd like to drill that down first.
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