• palordrolap@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    In 1994, CGI back-ends were the closest thing to interactivity in the browser, and that’s far back enough that a good deal of it was written in C. Strong typing abounds!

    But JavaScript was an absolute joy by comparison. Heck, even Perl CGI was a joy compared to having to write executables for every fricking thing.

    Note that by JavaScript, I mean the mostly hand-crafted stuff in earlier sites, not the enormous frameworks that are in use these days.

    • fibojoly@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Hear, hear! In 1998, I did my work experience at a local ISP and was tasked with coding a backend that would create accounts for people wanting to buy an internet subscription from us.
      IIS was still in beta so my boss decided I would use Linux, this new fangled language called PHP and just write a CGI in C that would do the actual creation of accounts on our server (IIRC).
      I spent a few weeks on a console terminal, using vi, doing C; which was as abominable as one might expect. PHP was fucking magic, in comparison. And on the front-end, I used a bit of JavaScript to add some interaction and reactivity and that was just fun!

      Heck, seventeen years later and I still think it’s a fun language to use.

      Anyway I don’t know where in was going with this… you kids don’t know how good you have it, is what I’m saying.