Re:The ultimate cross platform language
by terhechte on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @06:21AM
(#2840518)
I concur that it is interesting. I mostly wondered why it didn't catch on since it's been available for so long already. Also, for certain niches, like simpler games, it is probably a great solution since you can create it once and then publish / sell it on multiple platforms.
I'm also pretty sure that someday Ruby or Java or Javascript or Python will evolve into something which runs on almost any platform. Already, you can compile Java to Javascript, Python to Javascript, and so on. Especialy the LLVM is going to allow for way more inter-language swizzling.
Yeah... Node answers that elegantly. Writing in a third language which compiles to JavaScript and PHP, well... doesn't.
I hope this doesn't get taken the wrong way, because it looks like a very competent effort, but I think the main reason it hasn't "taken off" is that HaXe has the hallmarks of a language designed by committee on game dev forums. "So it looks like Java, acts like JavaScript, and compiles into C++, Flash and PHP? That's awesome!"
Sounds awesome to an indie game dev. Sounds hideous to a hipster web developer.
Re:The ultimate cross platform language
by neutronicus on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @12:14PM
(#2841705)
Clojure seems to be gunning for the "whole-stack" crown with ClojureScript.
It's no silver bullet, and I'd probably still agree with your assessment of using tools designed for the job - my web stack is Django + hand written javascript/jquery + node.js for multiplayer.
But I think it's well worth checking out for the news.yc crowd. I believe something similar will eventually win out - being able to write every part of a stack in the same language - but that language is probably destined to be Javascript.