When I started building Avocado, I never really expected it to be anything other than an amusing hack. I was curious to see how close I could come to re-creating Self in JavaScript, but I wasn’t expecting to actually succeed in creating a usable programming environment. I certainly wasn’t expecting to like JavaScript. I wasn’t even expecting to not-hate it.
So I should say it: I don’t hate JavaScript. I even kinda like it.
I’ve been a Smalltalk (and later Self) fan for years. I like my languages simple and clean and dynamic. And JavaScript is definitely not simple or clean. But as Douglas Crockford points out, inside JavaScript is a core of really good stuff: a prototype-based object system, dynamic typing, closures that work (almost) right. As long as I stick to that part of the language and avoid the really messed-up parts, I can actually feel at home in JavaScript. If you’re familiar with other dynamic OO languages like Ruby or Python, you might like JavaScript too.
I’ll have lots to say in the future about JavaScript’s weirdnesses and deficiencies. So I figured I’d start out by saying that I’m actually enjoying myself.