Ask HN: Why didn't the early web support more client side languages?
Disclaimer: I'm a backender so I may have this all wrong :)
The script element in HTML has provided the language property since its introduction, though nowadays it is deprecated in favour of the type attribute.
But the browser-supported languages seems to have been almost entirely Javascript and VBScript.
Given that Javascript is considered to be an at best quirky [0] language (justifiably given its 10 day gestation) how come the browser ecosystem never expanded to accommodate more direct scripting languages - particularly in the early days when Javascript libraries were rare beasts? As I remember it Javascript was deeply unpopular with devs until libraries like JQuery came along to make things a little less painful.
Was it the baleful influence of IE6 or some other winner-takes-all effect or what?
The script element in HTML has provided the language property since its introduction, though nowadays it is deprecated in favour of the type attribute.
But the browser-supported languages seems to have been almost entirely Javascript and VBScript.
Given that Javascript is considered to be an at best quirky [0] language (justifiably given its 10 day gestation) how come the browser ecosystem never expanded to accommodate more direct scripting languages - particularly in the early days when Javascript libraries were rare beasts? As I remember it Javascript was deeply unpopular with devs until libraries like JQuery came along to make things a little less painful.
Was it the baleful influence of IE6 or some other winner-takes-all effect or what?
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2998152-javascript