Item — HN Reader

"DeviceJS is a JavaScript based development platform for reacting to sensors and controlling devices. It’s built on top of Google’s V8 JavaScript engine, Node.js and a real-time JSON database."

Fascinating. JavaScript really is slowly becoming the lingua franca of everything.

2 comments

Atwood's law keeps on showing itself to be more and more prescient.

Just looked that up, but it seems like more of an argument for "most universally executable language" rather than "least powerful".

The problem with Javascript ironically is that in some ways it is too powerful. People want a simple scripting language with a basic type system but instead get a psuedo-functional/psuedo-OO language with a type system construction kit.

JS programmers and library designers seem to expend a lot of effort beating JS into the sort of language they want to use, the result is that many JS programs may as well have been written in entirely different languages.

Maybe due to that flexibility, it becomes the language they want. Where as other languages don't offer what they need/want.

Many people look at JavaScript's flexibility as a bad trait, but to skilled programmers, it becomes a great tool.

That may be true, but the principle of least power is all about picking low powered languages so that the programs become extensible to people with lower skill.

From the Kickstarter Page:

"DeviceJS ties Javascript to the physical world, by providing hooks for protocols like IP, 6loWPAN, Bluetooth™, Zigbee™, RS-232, and devices such as the Belkin WeMo™ and Phillips Hue™ light bulbs. Because the system is centered on Javascript, it is very easy for anyone to extend."