Does JavaScript Have a Future?

A few days ago I was talking with a friend and he said to me that JavaScript is an old Technology that the web developers only use it because it is the only language that runs on a browser, etc. Also, he said that the core of the language needs to be rewritten to solve some serious security problems. But I said, well dude Js will be around for a long time.

Though Javascript is an old Technology, just like our computer is. It was created a relatively long time ago and suffered some backlash a while back. But with the arrival of ECMAScript and Node.js things changed a lot, and JavaScript is nowadays the third most used language in the world with java and python above it. With the development of CSS and with the growing importance of Vue.js,Node.js and other frameworks and API driven web applications, it’s absolutely stupid to think that JavaScript has no future.

Other languages are coming in via Web Assembly but the maturity of that is far off in the future. At the moment you can write C code that compiles to web assembly and talks to JavaScript to do process-intensive tasks. There are also several languages that transpile to JavaScript, to name a few: Scala.js, ClojureScript, TypeScript and CoffeeScript.

That says JavaScript is the most prime and trendiest languages currently. And since the body that controls the ECMAscript standard has moved to an annual release cycle, JavaScript has lots of wonderful updates and modern language features. It’s matured into a beautiful language day by day. The language will always have a historical cruft because web standards strive for 100% backward compatibility with every piece of code ever written for the web since it began.HTML, CSS and JavaScript don’t have the luxury of tossing out the old for this reason. With so many new best practices,you’ll never see most of that.

Any frontEnd code is inherently insecure. Sure the app ecosystem of IOS, Android, etc is more locked down and reverse engineering computer code into something human-readable is a huge pain in the ass but it’s still doable. The point is, you can never trust the client. This is why OAuth and other authentications were made. Principally the frontEnd manages state while the backEnd gives and takes your data and authorizes data access. Assuming your FrontEnd is compromised and API endpoints are exposed, this doesn’t mean anything because without the right JWT or whatever you can’t get or give data from the API anyway. And if the frontEnd is compromised, a big deal if you can fake manage state. The FrontEnd should never be your source of truth.

I fell in love with JavaScript last year and it’s my main language for the job. The syntax is beautiful and it reads like a book. If you and familiar with the working of API’s and all this language is the best to code. Reading the documentation helps a lot to understand about the language and its working. I was stuck for months but slowly with the understanding of the language helped me to move and do something with it. Many Languages will come and go but JavaScript will keep ongoing and maintain it’s beauty.

JavaScript not only have future but it is future itself.