Yeah, all those things. I've had the best luck "turning" Java programmers to JavaScript. There's often a point where it clicks, and they get this far-off, glazed look. One time at my last gig I was doing a code review of my JS for a room of Java programmers, when this guy walks in and sits down, and hush falls over the room. Somebody whispered in my ear that he was the company's Java Architect, the guy who told everybody else in the room how to program. He started heckling me after a while, in that way that Java programmers have of looking down their nose at Javascript, so I started focusing on the more exotic aspects of my code, and walking him through it. There was one of those moments, when I explained the peculiar possibilities of an object model based on associative arrays--self-modifying classes!!! Mr. Java himself gained some respect for JavaScript that day. Shortly after that, several of the Java programmers approached me wanting to learn more about JS.

JavaScript's pretty easy to learn for everybody who's worked with the C-syntax family of languages. There's a whole continuum from C to C# where it's the minor differences that get you, but overall it's as comprehensible as different dialects of English. I used to have a real hard time moving between JavaScript on the client side and VB on the server side, because the difference is more like English and Japanese. That's pretty not much not a problem anymore, as I'm doing most of my new work in C# in ASP.Net. Not a lot of it so far, and I'm still feeling my way around, but I'm pretty jazzed about the possibilities of ASP.Net. Suddenly getting access to a large class library, after cobbling together bits of ActiveX under ASP, is like having a rotten tooth pulled--I didn't know how much I was hurting. And no more JSP-envy. Now Java programmers aren't the only ones with a rich class library on the server.

One thing about the similarity of JavaScript to the C family is that it's a pitfall. I think it's the reason more people haven't discovered the hidden powers of the language. You can use JS just like C and think you've mastered it; you can map its object model to C++ and think you've mastered it; but in reality thinking in those channels cuts people off from the coolest features of the language. You have to think like a JavaScript programmer and nothing else.

Which makes it sometimes a little scary to think that I've specialized so deeply in a subject so narrow. Or as you put it, "diving in and touching bottom". Ouch! Ever whacked your head on the bottom of a swimming pool? I don't want to drown in the language! I still have a lot of work to get done over in C# for the server side. Hope I'm not ruined by my obsession with JavaScript.

I think I've spent the last two hours writing about programming. I just got out of the long branch with "A.Prog", whoever that is, debating the merits of Java versus JavaScript in what we both insist is not a language pissing contest. Right. I'm really burnt out on the subject for tonight. Signing off now...