this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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When JavaScript was first released, it was a god-send. The alternative was vbscript and if you think JavaScript is bad...
Very true. I remember vbscript. I still have to write some occasionally. What’s funny is that powershell gets all the attention & security applied to it - but vbscript likely keeps its flaws in the name of backwards compatibility. I’m betting vbscript is a huge attack vector just waiting for some major exploitation that leads to its removal or being severely gimped.
I assume vbscript is not Visual Basic? That was my first thought and I find that quite easy to grasp
Correct. You know how JavaScript is not Java? Same thing. If memory serves me correctly there was a bit of a race to be the next Windows script language between NT4 and 2000 (to replace batch), and it was between VBScript and Kixtart (the former won out).
Correct.
To get a feel for what VBScript was like, think of Visual Basic. Now throw out all the good bits and mix in a bunch of JavaScript style quirks.
Then try to parse binary data packets with it, beacuse XML isn't widely supported and JSON has not been invented/discovered yet.
It was bad.
Yeah, everyone hates JS but that doesn't mean the existence of JS is a curse. For a long time it has been the best at what it's commonly used for. Otherwise no one would complain about it because no one would use it.
All I remember about vbscript was that array indexes started at 1.
I just remembered
option base 0:-)Wow, they found something even more confusing than 1-indexing (conditional 1-indexing)
option base 42Sadly, per the syntax docs on O'Reilly it doesn't look like it can be anything but 0 or 1. That's not to say it's a good feature, but at least make it fun if it's gonna be bad.
That's such a perfect summary of VBScript. Starting array indexes at 1 was it's vibe.
VBScript would show up for it's first day as a construction worker in a white shirt and a tie. I loved VBScripts willingness to do messy work, but boy was it unprepared in many contexts.