Douglas Crockford, a pivotal figure in JavaScript's history and creator of JSON, shares his career insights alongside Josh Goldberg, a TypeScript expert. They dive into the evolution of programming languages, contrasting JavaScript's functional model with traditional class-based systems. Crockford critiques recent JavaScript features and discusses the elegance of JSON as a simple yet powerful data interchange format. The duo also reflects on TypeScript's rise and the importance of making programming more accessible to diverse communities.
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Quick takeaways
Douglas Crockford's journey from programming games at Atari to developing JSON highlights the transformative potential of JavaScript in modern web communication.
Crockford critiques the increasing complexity of JavaScript, advocating for simplicity and better educational methods to make programming more approachable.
Deep dives
Early Influences on Career Development
Douglas Crockford discusses his early exposure to programming during college, where he initially majored in radio and television. His academic shift occurred when he took a FORTRAN programming class, leading him to realize his aptitude for coding. This newfound interest compelled him to pursue further programming classes, which ultimately kickstarted his career in technology. Crockford reflects on the challenges of earlier computing environments, noting the lengthy process of programming using punch cards and the limited memory of computers, contrasting it with modern programming practices.
Transition from Game Development to JavaScript
Crockford shares his journey from the video game industry to becoming a key player in JavaScript development. Initially, he created a game for Atari that led to a position in their research lab. This experience laid the groundwork for his later contributions to JavaScript, especially when he sought to create an interactive online game using the language, which changed his perception of its capabilities. His realization of JavaScript's potential as a functional programming language transformed his engagement with it, ultimately leading him to advocate for its features.
The Creation of JSON
Crockford explains how he developed JSON as a lightweight data interchange format to overcome the limitations of XML for web communications in 2001. Recognizing the need for a simpler way to send messages between browsers and servers, he proposed using a subset of JavaScript object literals instead. This innovative idea quickly gained traction, becoming widely adopted after the emergence of AJAX in web development. Despite initial skepticism from potential customers, JSON eventually became standardized and an industry staple for data exchange across various programming languages.
Critiques and Observations on JavaScript and Programming Trends
Crockford critiques the evolution of JavaScript, expressing concern about its growing complexity due to added features over time. He emphasizes the importance of simplicity in programming languages and argues against introducing unnecessary changes that could complicate the language further. Highlighting the challenges posed by maintaining backwards compatibility, he believes that JavaScript's breadth of paradigms can lead to confusion within the community. Additionally, he addresses programming education, advocating for reform in teaching methods to make subjects like mathematics more approachable and less intimidating.
Douglas Crockford is an American computer programmer who is involved in the development of the JavaScript language. He specified the JSON data format, and has developed various JavaScript related tools such as the static code analyzer JSLint. Crockford is also a game developer and worked at Atari.
Douglas joins the podcast to talk about his career and work in computer science.
Josh Goldberg is an independent full time open source developer in the TypeScript ecosystem. He works on projects that help developers write better TypeScript more easily, most notably on typescript-eslint: the tooling that enables ESLint and Prettier to run on TypeScript code. Josh regularly contributes to open source projects in the ecosystem such as ESLint and TypeScript. Josh is a Microsoft MVP for developer technologies and the author of the acclaimed Learning TypeScript (O’Reilly), a cherished resource for any developer seeking to learn TypeScript without any prior experience outside of JavaScript. Josh regularly presents talks and workshops at bootcamps, conferences, and meetups to share knowledge on TypeScript, static analysis, open source, and general frontend and web development.