Reasons why VBScript blows

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- No associative arrays

- Option Explicit is not on by default

- Too many ways to say "nothing" (Nothing, Empty, Null, "")

- No heredoc syntax

- Error handling based on goto instead of try-catch

- Assignment operator is the same as equivilence operator

- Newline is not treated as whitespace

- No block comments

- No "var += 5" syntax

- It's possible to change between 0-indexed and 1-indexed

- "Dim myArray(n)" allocates n+1 elements (0-n, inclusive) instead of n elements

- Cannot index into a string like an array

- Cannot declare variables as non-variant (100% weak-typed)


- Cannot initialize a variable in its declaration

'Cannot do:

Dim var = 5



'Must do

Dim var

var = 5





- No short-circuit evaluation:

'Cannot do:

If (Not IsNull(varA) And varA = 5) Or varB = 5 Then

  '...do stuff

End If



'Must do:

If Not IsNull(varA) Then

  If varA = 5 Or varB = 5 Then

    '...do stuff

  End If

ElseIf varB = 5 Then 'duplicate condition

  '...do same stuff (duplicate code)

End If



'Or:

Dim flag

flag = False

If Not IsNull(varA) Then

  If varA = 5 Or varB = 5 Then

    flag = True

  End If

ElseIf varB = 5 Then 'duplicate condition

  flag = True

End If

If flag Then

  '...do stuff

End If