A longish, interesting writeup of a Steve Yegge presentation on server-side Javascript. It’s called Rhino, and is hosted in the JVM (which I don’t think is as bad as it sounds). Yegge comments on the stigmas around the JVM and Javascript itself. He asks the crowd about Javascript:

Who here thinks JavaScript is kind of icky? Come on, come on, be honest. Yeah, there we go, a couple of people. Yeah.

And then jokes about Java:

You need to write unit tests, and unfortunately in Java it’s very painful. I’m speaking into the mic now, so that everybody can hear. Unit testing in Java is painful!

What I like most about the talk is that he’s an open thinker about languages in general, and is willing to look at their respective strengths and weaknesses. It’s a mindset I can respect, where merit is based on good sense.