The demo is a dialect of Clojure that compiles to Js called Squint. I find it really depressing that this type of workflow has existed since the 70s, but never made it to the mainstream.
We really do, I find Js is useful cause it's so ubiquitous, but the language itself is really awful. Being able to write your code in Lisp and crap out Js is really appealing.
Yeah, none of these languages have gone mainstream unfortunately. That said, I've been lucky enough to be able to use ClojureScript for all my front end dev, and haven't had to touch Js in years.
I really don't understand how people work with Js. What blows my mind is that people choose to use it on the server voluntarily when there are so many better options available.
I noticed an interesting pattern over the years where a lot of people are willing to spend inordinate amounts of time learning libraries and tools within the ecosystem they're familiar with, but they tend to have little interest stepping out of it. I guess there's a certain level of comfort you develop with a language and then you just don't want to spend the time to learn others.
Oh completely.. Its sometimes the weird syntax that freaks people out. I mean it helps to know multiple languages in life why not in tech? I have heard from so many people that they can't follow some code examples just cause it's in lisp but using descriptive var and function names .. Nope.. They still can't