It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

The three most prevalent themes in the Hacker News discussion regarding JavaScript/ECMAScript are:

1. The Desire to Rename/Stop Using "JavaScript"

Many participants expressed strong dissatisfaction with the name "JavaScript," citing its unnecessary association with Java and its awkward pronunciation, leading to suggested alternatives.

Supporting Quotes:
- "I actually think that people should rather use EcmaScript name instead of JavaScript, because it's a way better name (much less confusing, given that this lang doesn't have anything to do with Java anyway)." - "siwatanejo"
- "EcmaScript is an awful name. It sounds too similar to eczema or ectoplasm." - "someguyiguess"
- "WebScript would be better." - "newsoftheday"

2. Skepticism Regarding the Feasibility and Necessity of Renaming

Despite the dislike for the name, several users argued that changing it is too late, impractical due to ecosystem inertia, or a distraction from more substantial issues facing developers.

Supporting Quotes:
- "That boat sailed soooo many years ago tho." - "phplovesong"
- "Let's stop calling it 'JavaScript' entirely. 'JS' is right there." - "billpg"
- "Imagine if this effort was spent on solving more pressing problems, like the recent yet another security kerfuffle, or the overloaded maintainers whom everyone depends on but reliably fails to support." - "homebrewer"

3. Concerns Over Oracle's Trademark Control and Potential Exploitation

A significant thread of the discussion focused on Oracle's ownership of the trademark and the fear that they might weaponize it against everyday users or companies, as has been historically done elsewhere.

Supporting Quotes:
- "Oracle is in the business of bullying others using their big legal dept." - "cies"
- "At some point they will approach companies... They will offer a 'convenient' licensing agreement $50,000 per year for the use of their trademark." - "sswaner"
- "They have zero benefit, except of course occasional bullying." - "lionkor"

🚀 Project Ideas

JS Abbreviation Adoption Campaign Tool

Summary

A tool/service dedicated to promoting and standardizing the use of "JS" as the official, standalone abbreviation for JavaScript/ECMAScript across documentation, tooling, and community discussions.
Core Value Proposition: Decoupling identification from the problematic "JavaScript" trademark while offering an easy-to-adopt, universally understood replacement, bypassing the awkwardness of "ECMAScript."

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Technical writers, open-source project maintainers, recruiter job posters, and search engines indexing developer content.
Core Feature	Automated code/documentation linter plugin (for IDEs/CI), style guide generation, and a centralized registry/API to track adoption metrics.
Tech Stack	Node.js (for linting/CLI tools), WebAssembly (for browser/editor plugins), simple web interface (React/Vue).
Difficulty	Medium
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

Why HN commenters would love it: Directly addresses the fatigue around the name ("Just go with the flow - call it js," "We should stop saying 'JavaScript' and fully switch to JS."). It offers a non-legalistic, practical solution to the naming problem that sidesteps Oracle's control.
Potential for discussion or practical utility: The project could generate significant discussion around language governance and standardization efforts (similar to discussions about native TypeScript support) and could practically reduce legal ambiguity for smaller projects adopting the term immediately.

ECMAScript Standardized Pronunciation & Style Guide Generator

Summary

A service that provides authoritative documentation and tooling based on the preferred pronunciation and formal style guide for "ECMAScript" (or proposed alternatives like "WebScript").
Core Value Proposition: Providing clear, non-awkward nomenclature and documentation standards to support those wishing to switch away from "JavaScript" for reasons of clarity or avoiding the trademark association.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Developers actively favoring "ECMAScript," technical documentation teams, and educational platforms struggling with pronunciation.
Core Feature	An interactive tool demonstrating and standardizing pronunciation (e.g., "Eck-ma-script") with audio samples, and generating style guides (e.g., capitalization rules, abbreviation standards like ECMA-262).
Tech Stack	Frontend SPA (Svelte for performance), leveraging Web Speech API for generated audio examples, static site generation for documentation.
Difficulty	Low
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

Why HN commenters would love it: Appeals to the segment frustrated by the current name's sound ("EcmaScript just sounds icky," "How do you even pronounce it?"). It validates the desire to use the "correct" name by making it accessible and less of a "mouthful."
Potential for discussion or practical utility: Could spark debate on phonetics in technical naming and provides a valuable resource against the common complaint that "ECMAScript is a mouthful!"

Browser Interoperability Benchmarker (WASM vs. Native JS)

Summary

A diagnostic tool built to benchmark the actual performance disparity between modern JavaScript execution and WebAssembly execution for equivalent logic, focusing on API interaction overhead.
Core Value Proposition: Provides empirical data regarding the community's desire to move core logic to WASM, providing developers with hard metrics to justify choosing WASM over modern, optimized JS for performance-critical tasks.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Performance engineers, library authors, and developers exploring WASM for production use cases beyond simple calculations.
Core Feature	A standardized harness that compiles a common set of tasks (e.g., DOM manipulation patterns, complex data structures, async operations) into both modern JS and WASM, measuring execution time and memory footprint in major browsers.
Tech Stack	Rust/Go (for WASM modules), JavaScript Harness (to drive interoperability calls), comprehensive browser testing matrix.
Difficulty	High
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

Why HN commenters would love it: Directly addresses the aspiration that "Why in 2025 can we not ship a statically typed high performance language for browsers?" and the suggestion that "WASM is the right answer." It moves the discussion from theoretical benefits to measurable reality.
Potential for discussion or practical utility: Could generate long threads comparing WASM compilation targets, the efficiency of JS engines versus native compilation, and the diminishing returns of optimizing JS further, feeding into the TC39 standards debate.