More reactions to Joel's strategy

In my last post about Joel's ultimate javascript runtime predictions, I linked to Nikhil Kothari's Script# project, which distills C# into javascript. This article comes now to my attention, about how ExtJS is thrown into the brew to extend the javascript end product. A console app was written to parse all of the ExtJS source files, creating a C# file for each corresponding javascript class. I took a peep under the hood of the parser program, which was written in C# and, is beautifully simple; With little effort, Script# can be extended in the same way to work with other javascript libraries such as jQuery, Prototype, Mochikit, etc. Of course, Joel's whole point is that one of these will emerge as the winner in some form of AJAX UI standardization. And then, if his predictions come true, we can expect Script# and other tools, like the GWT, to translate higher level code into the same NewSDK-enhanced javascript.

Also in that last post, I mentioned a Lispy compile-to-javascript language called ParenScript which does work with external libraries. Seriously, I hear you say with a choke, Lisp? Anyway, here are more reactions - to Joel's post, not mine:

I can’t help but wonder why Joel and others didn't make greater use of Dean Edward’s IE7 at the time.

- Sam Ruby

The lotus analogy is stupid as hell. Lotus went down because they pursued a terrible idea. 3D Spreadsheets?! Are you kidding me? The only connection with Moore's law was that it prevented them from seeing how bad the idea was. The bad idea itself was to blame.

- Lloyd Dalton, disagreeing wildly.