Office 365, Teams, Skype, VS Code and probably others
What is the point of writing or rewriting software in JavaScript? Here is a question that has recently been much in the news about Developpez.com. If some consider JavaScript as a cancer that must be eradicated, for others it is rather the language of tomorrow.
This last position can be explained in part by the fact that the fate of programming languages is linked to their ecosystem and JavaScript benefits from a vast ecosystem. First, web browsers that swear by JavaScript are widely deployed platforms.
But in addition, platforms like Node and Electron - which rely on JavaScript - are very widespread. So with JavaScript, you can easily target certain frontends and backends with the same code. JavaScript would also have other benefits to believe the testimony of mister3957:
After redoing a lot of services previously written in C ++ to spend in JS, I saw a lot of interests:
- Easier to maintain
- Artifacts are faster to build (so time to market more interesting)
- Easier to debug
- greatly reduced learning curve
- Portability (except in rare cases, when it uses specific native modules)
- Rich and open ecosystem
- Skills available on the market
- Asynchronous
There is just one that has remained in C ++ because it requires a lot of power and control between the memory and the CPU, but consumed through JS.
These advantages seem to outweigh the fact that the JS ecosystem is evolving very fast; which requires a constant watch and to adapt to not find quickly with outdated code.
We can say today that JavaScript also has big fans among the giants of technology, including Microsoft, as the title of this news suggests: Microsoft would be rewriting many of its tools and software in JavaScript. The information comes from Sean Thomas Larkin, Technical Program Manager for the Microsoft Web platform.
"I have never been able to say it until now. Well, in fact, all Office 365 is being completely rewritten (and it's almost done) in this little scripting language called #JavaScript, "he said in a post published a few days ago. hours on Twitter. Before completing the list of Microsoft tools and software that are also being rewritten in JavaScript: "And Skype, and Microsoft Teams, and Visual Studio Code, and all the Microsoft Edge debug protocol (instead of C ++), "he added.
Recall also that Microsoft recently added to Excel the ability to write custom functions in JavaScript, which suggests that Microsoft has a policy increasingly oriented to JavaScript. But what is the purpose?