> that's not a good reason to give up on the most popular scripting language that will engage more developer to VR.
Maybe, but there are a lot of good reasons to avoid Javascript, too.
I've actually been part of a project that used Javascript as a scripting language inside non-web software. IMO a better language should be used whenever possible.
First, even today, 98% of the Javascript code and tutorials on the internet and in books is focused squarely on website scripting, and it's difficult to find out what's actually part of Javascript, and what parts come from the browser. So saying, "There are a ton of Javascript resources available," ends up not meaning much, because they're all telling you how to manipulate CSS or navigate through the DOM. The other 2% covers node.js, which is still not useful for embedded scripting.
Second, Javascript sucks as a language. There's all kinds of stuff like weird conversion rules and lack of real arrays (and I could keep going, but won't) that end up making things more difficult than they need to be. It's a commonly held belief that it was unfortunate Javascript became the de-facto scripting language of the web. No use propagating that mistake to other fields.
Third, there's no reason to believe that web developers familiar with Javascript will be particularly good at (or interested in) scripting VR systems or whatever.
Finally, a lot of existing Javascript code is just really, really bad. It may be the most popular scripting language, but I would wager large amounts of money that as a percentage, there's more flat out bad Javascript code than there is in any other language. Missing out on that part of the developer pool helps more than it hurts.
Besides all of that, Scheme isn't very hard to learn and is a far better language than Javascript. People turned off because they can't learn Scheme probably weren't going to contribute much anyway.
Maybe, but there are a lot of good reasons to avoid Javascript, too.
I've actually been part of a project that used Javascript as a scripting language inside non-web software. IMO a better language should be used whenever possible.
First, even today, 98% of the Javascript code and tutorials on the internet and in books is focused squarely on website scripting, and it's difficult to find out what's actually part of Javascript, and what parts come from the browser. So saying, "There are a ton of Javascript resources available," ends up not meaning much, because they're all telling you how to manipulate CSS or navigate through the DOM. The other 2% covers node.js, which is still not useful for embedded scripting.
Second, Javascript sucks as a language. There's all kinds of stuff like weird conversion rules and lack of real arrays (and I could keep going, but won't) that end up making things more difficult than they need to be. It's a commonly held belief that it was unfortunate Javascript became the de-facto scripting language of the web. No use propagating that mistake to other fields.
Third, there's no reason to believe that web developers familiar with Javascript will be particularly good at (or interested in) scripting VR systems or whatever.
Finally, a lot of existing Javascript code is just really, really bad. It may be the most popular scripting language, but I would wager large amounts of money that as a percentage, there's more flat out bad Javascript code than there is in any other language. Missing out on that part of the developer pool helps more than it hurts.
Besides all of that, Scheme isn't very hard to learn and is a far better language than Javascript. People turned off because they can't learn Scheme probably weren't going to contribute much anyway.