Comment by __MatrixMan__
19 hours ago
The language that made it normal to blindly run code that you found lying around on some page? Elsewhere we'd call that a remote code execution exploit. JavaScript just calls it another day at the office.
And it's not fully sandboxed. It betrays its user all the time by abusing unrestricted access to the network, or activating browser functionality that most of us would disable if we could.
I'm not saying it's THE bad decision, but it is the product of a generation of thinkers who were not thinking about threats the way we do now. If we were to go back in time and have the opportunity to do it differently, I think we would take that opportunity.
But we don't actually need a time machine. We can just accept some sunk costs and move forward anyhow.
To be fair, Java applets and the Flash plugin socialized that before Javascript tried to walk us back from the edge just a bit.
And before that, whatever Microsoft "macro" or embedded code variant was popular that week in all those document formats...
Blindly running client side code (within a very carefully designed sandbox) is necessary for the modern web to operate, and people like the modern web.
We aren't going back to a page refresh every time you want to update something any time soon
I would take a page refresh that takes two seconds over waiting half a minute for a page to "hydrate"
Are you sure people like the modern web? It's increasingly used as a weapon against them. I don't know anybody under 20 who likes the modern web. As for the others, I think its more about nostalgia.
> Are you sure people like the modern web?
People will often claim to dislike something, even though they would dislike the alternative even more (and they might even be actively choosing against the alternative). Pay more attention to what people’s actions reveal than what they claim.
(This happens not just in tech.)
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The tech that made the old web still exists. Everything is a GET, a form POST, and needs a page reload. You can still use tables for layout like it's 1996.
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People do? I loathe the modern web.
Give me a https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ instead.