Over the past decade, few things have had as much of a cultural impact as Javascript. Because just about every Internet user has a Javascript interpreter in their browser, many artists and creative-minded engineers use it to tinker and to express themselves through software. Its power as a high-level language allows entrepreneurs to treat society like a lab experiment: it’s hard to imagine our algorithmic hellscape without it. The first lines of code ever written by a US president? Javascript.
Javascript’s everlasting popularity is both thanks to and in spite of itself: Rome was not built in a day, but Javascript was built in ten. Its design quirks, borne out of haste, continue to frustrate those building large-scale software even to this day. Much of the language’s success is attributable to its expressive power, thanks to its original intent as a language for designers.
In 2008, Brendan Eich, the creator of Javascript, explained its intent as such:
“We aimed to provide a "glue language" for the Web designers and part time programmers who were building Web content from components such as images, plugins, and Java applets. We saw Java as the "component language" used by higher-priced programmers, where the glue programmers -- the Web page designers -- would assemble components and automate their interactions using JS.”
Eich did not foresee the impact his invention would have: it is clear that he saw a separation between “real programmers” and everyone else. For him, designers were the last part of the Internet assembly line, and their technical ineptitude required him to water down the art of programming. However, he is oblivious to the designer’s unique ability to translate abstract ideas into a tangible format, and the sheer impact it has had on society at large.
When Javascript was first invented, the Internet was still a speculative technology. Most could not predict its impact on the world, and it was up to its early users to find meaning. What the language enabled was (and still is) truly priceless: the ability to cobble things together to create something new.
The Internet as we know it was built by those who were able to utilize this method to build their own interpretation of the future, and that future is now the society that we live in. Code is culture, and that culture needs creative people much more than we know.
If web3 aims to be greater than just vibes, ideals, and whitepapers, it needs those futurecrafters now more than ever. I still believe that software designers are the best positioned to translate these abstract concepts into something that is easily understood by many.
My goal as quaintflux is to study web3 in the lens of anonymity: starting from zero, fervently experimenting, and seeing where that leads. Only then will I discover how the new culture will work.