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This isn't a competitor to react; its a competitor to ES6/typescript/coffeescript. React is a template library, not a language. JSX is a way to write template

This isn't a competitor to react; its a competitor to ES6/typescript/coffeescript. React is a template library, not a language. JSX is a way to write templates, but that's not react, and its not what react does. It's just a shortcut to writing XML. You could say this is a competitor to JSX, perhaps; but anything more is hyperbole. People aren't using react and angular because they have a nice syntax, that's just nice, they use them because you can build applications with them. How do you build ui components using imba? Use react? :P

kbenson 11y ago
My first thought as well, even though I know little except the marketing about React. It's like if someone said "Foo: a new competitor to Rails", or "Bar: a new competitor to Vim". That's not to say I wouldn't be interested in reading about a language that could somehow compete with Vim, if that was an accurate statement.
judofyr 11y ago
Imba includes syntax for tags (scroll down to "Tags"), virtual DOM diffing, event handling (with touch support). Yes, React is not a language in itself, but there's quite big overlap in what Imba does and what React+JSX does. You build UI components like this: tag event < div def render <self> <h1> event.title <p> "Happening on {event.dateString}"
- shadowmint 11y ago
  No. Read what I wrote again. You just wrote a template. That's like JSX. You ALSO need a library to do the virtaul dom stuff and/or data binding to write an application. React. !=. JSX. What you have here is a programming language that compiles to javascript and has an inbuilt templating language. So does ES6; `${hi}`. That's a fundamental building block, not a replacement for a high level framework, like react.
  - mintplant 11y ago
    I can only conclude that you're so focused on aggressively dismissing this person's work, in the typical HN fashion, that you didn't actually read the comment you responded to, or any of their other responses throughout this thread. You say: >You ALSO need a library to do the virtaul dom stuff and/or data binding to write an application. OP says: >Imba includes syntax for tags (scroll down to "Tags"), virtual DOM diffing, event handling (with touch support). >Although Imba was started before React it should be noted that it didn't include virtual diffing until React showed that it worked.
    - chc 11y ago
      judofyr's comment that you're quoting was posted after shadowmint's.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        TFA however, which has examples of that stuff, was posted before shadowmint's. If he was unsure about what he saw in those examples, then he could always refrain from pissing on the project until he had more information.
      - mintplant 11y ago
        The second quote, maybe, but the first comes directly from the comment shadowmint is responding to here.
        shadowmint 11y ago
        Its great how you can edit comments isn't it? Both quotes were edited. Still... I suppose that my original post remains the top here says something. Cant reedit something with no parent. too bad. ;)
      - girvo 11y ago
        Sure, but it's in the damned article.
  - 11y ago
- findjashua 11y ago
  just so i understand this correctly - you also handle diffing & patching the virtual dom? If so, a few questions: 1. how much of the speedup is due to replacing JSX, and how much due to replacing the diffing algorithm. 2. how do you improve on the diffing speed, is it due to immutable data structures underneath, or something? 3. do you also provide mount/unmount hooks for the components?
- tobr 11y ago
  Any plans for SVG support? I'm getting errors when using <svg>, but maybe there's some way to make it work?
- creamyhorror 11y ago
  I find the structure of an Imba app rather intriguing; the view+rendering (i.e. tags) almost looks like an upgraded HTML/HAML (possibly akin to EnyoJS). http://imba.io/#/examples/todomvc/app.imba http://imba.io/#/examples/todomvc/app.imba (this annotated app is illuminating, and ought to be put upfront on your site if possible) The methods are clean and readable: tag #app def dirty persist render def add title if title.trim TodoList.push(TodoItem.new(title.trim)) dirty self And the view+rendering (literally the whole "upgraded-HTML" of the app) is so compact: def render var all = TodoList var active = all.filter do |todo| !todo.completed var done = all.filter do |todo| todo.completed var items = {'#/completed': done, '#/active': active}[hash] or all <self> <header.header> <h1> "todos" <new-todo-input.new-todo type='text' placeholder='What needs to be done?'> if all:length > 0 <section.main> <input.toggle-all type='checkbox' :change='toggleAll'> <ul.todo-list> for todo in items <li[todo]@{todo.id} .completed=(todo.completed) .editing=(todo.editing) > <div.view> <label :dblclick=['edit',todo]> todo.title <input.toggle type='checkbox' :change=['toggle',todo] checked=(todo.completed)> <button.destroy :tap=['drop',todo]> <edit-todo[todo].edit type='text'> ($$(.todoapp) or $$(body)).append #app I'd enjoy being able to code a SPA like this, I think - nice work! If something this clean is already possible in some other language/framework/library, I'd love to hear about it (since I haven't been following recent JS developments closely). edit: @judofyr, the Scroller example app doesn't work for me on Firefox 40.0.2 on Win 8. It works in Chrome.
  - gosukiwi 11y ago
    How does it handle data binding?
    - creamyhorror 11y ago
      It looks similar to React's one-way data flow - that render method produces the whole app view, and refers to all the necessary variables. When an event occurs [e.g. the user types text to add and hits enter]: - the appropriate method is called [e.g. add] - which mutates the state [e.g. TodoList.push(TodoItem.new(title.trim))] - and then render is called, which updates the view/DOM So in a sense it's not really data-binding, IMO - instead, the render method contains the entire view + view logic, and it gets called each time the state is changed.
jlebrech 11y ago
I guess the title should be JS/React
lhorie 11y ago
Mithril author here. It does appear to have a React-like engine here: https://github.com/somebee/imba/blob/master/src/imba/dom.static.imba https://github.com/somebee/imba/blob/master/src/imba/dom.sta..., but from a quick glance, I can't tell if the quality of the engine is any good (e.g. whether it supports lifecycle methods, efficient sorts, jQuery plugins, etc) because there are no docs and I don't really have time to read the whole codebase right now. Same goes for the speed claim: can't tell if it's actual speed or "cheating" by batching multiple redraws on rAF while not batching them in the React demo. I'm guessing the latter. Also, I'm not sure I agree with claim of readable output js: http://somebee.github.io/todomvc-render-benchmark/todomvc/imba/js/app.js http://somebee.github.io/todomvc-render-benchmark/todomvc/im... (look at tag.prototype.render). It's not exactly clean, although it's not terrible either. With that being said, the language does look like it has some improvements over Coffeescript. The lack of docs is a showstopper for me, however.
- judofyr 11y ago
  > The lack of docs is a showstopper for me, however. That's a fair criticism. We know that docs are severely lacking. But at one point you'll have to release it. The reason it's been private for all these years is because there's always been just one more thing to fix. And this is just an open-source project. We just think this is a cool technology and want to share it with the rest of the community. > Same goes for the speed claim: can't tell if it's actual speed or "cheating" by batching multiple redraws on rAF and while not batching them in the React demo. I'm guessing the latter. Hah, we talked about this before the release. We actually thought about publishing worse results (or adding some code to slow it down) because we were afraid people wouldn't believe it. requestAnimationFrame isn't used in this demo. The repaint/redraw is not the thing we are trying to benchmark. We might as well hide the whole app during the benchmark, or even detach it from the document. It is trying to measure the performance of bringing the whole view "in sync". If there is something wrong with the way Mithril is forced to render, please file an issue. > lifecycle methods, efficient sorts, jQuery plugins There's probably some more lifecycle methods that could be useful, but the amount of lines written in Imba is in the magnitude of 100k. The current approach has been adequate for that. The sorting is quite efficient. We find the minimal amount of nodes that needs to be reordered. jQuery plugins should work fine as long as they don't touch the parents too much; Imba is quite good at keeping the DOM-node in the tree.
coldtea 11y ago
>This isn't a competitor to react; its a competitor to ES6/typescript/coffeescript. Perhaps you haven't looked at the examples. >React is a template library, not a language. Irrelevant -- and it's not such a clear cut distinction as you make it anyway. A new language can have built in first class support for react like templating -- and this does. >People aren't using react and angular because they have a nice syntax, that's just nice, they use them because you can build applications with them. Yeah, so the idea behind imba is that if you could do the same things WITH a nice syntax and first class support it would be better. Seriously do people read TFA?

kbenson 11y ago

My first thought as well, even though I know little except the marketing about React. It's like if someone said "Foo: a new competitor to Rails", or "Bar: a new competitor to Vim". That's not to say I wouldn't be interested in reading about a language that could somehow compete with Vim, if that was an accurate statement.

judofyr 11y ago

Imba includes syntax for tags (scroll down to "Tags"), virtual DOM diffing, event handling (with touch support). Yes, React is not a language in itself, but there's quite big overlap in what Imba does and what React+JSX does. You build UI components like this: tag event < div def render <self> <h1> event.title <p> "Happening on {event.dateString}"

shadowmint 11y ago
No. Read what I wrote again. You just wrote a template. That's like JSX. You ALSO need a library to do the virtaul dom stuff and/or data binding to write an application. React. !=. JSX. What you have here is a programming language that compiles to javascript and has an inbuilt templating language. So does ES6; `${hi}`. That's a fundamental building block, not a replacement for a high level framework, like react.
- mintplant 11y ago
  I can only conclude that you're so focused on aggressively dismissing this person's work, in the typical HN fashion, that you didn't actually read the comment you responded to, or any of their other responses throughout this thread. You say: >You ALSO need a library to do the virtaul dom stuff and/or data binding to write an application. OP says: >Imba includes syntax for tags (scroll down to "Tags"), virtual DOM diffing, event handling (with touch support). >Although Imba was started before React it should be noted that it didn't include virtual diffing until React showed that it worked.
  - chc 11y ago
    judofyr's comment that you're quoting was posted after shadowmint's.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      TFA however, which has examples of that stuff, was posted before shadowmint's. If he was unsure about what he saw in those examples, then he could always refrain from pissing on the project until he had more information.
    - mintplant 11y ago
      The second quote, maybe, but the first comes directly from the comment shadowmint is responding to here.
      - shadowmint 11y ago
        Its great how you can edit comments isn't it? Both quotes were edited. Still... I suppose that my original post remains the top here says something. Cant reedit something with no parent. too bad. ;)
    - girvo 11y ago
      Sure, but it's in the damned article.
- 11y ago
findjashua 11y ago
just so i understand this correctly - you also handle diffing & patching the virtual dom? If so, a few questions: 1. how much of the speedup is due to replacing JSX, and how much due to replacing the diffing algorithm. 2. how do you improve on the diffing speed, is it due to immutable data structures underneath, or something? 3. do you also provide mount/unmount hooks for the components?
tobr 11y ago
Any plans for SVG support? I'm getting errors when using <svg>, but maybe there's some way to make it work?
creamyhorror 11y ago
I find the structure of an Imba app rather intriguing; the view+rendering (i.e. tags) almost looks like an upgraded HTML/HAML (possibly akin to EnyoJS). http://imba.io/#/examples/todomvc/app.imba http://imba.io/#/examples/todomvc/app.imba (this annotated app is illuminating, and ought to be put upfront on your site if possible) The methods are clean and readable: tag #app def dirty persist render def add title if title.trim TodoList.push(TodoItem.new(title.trim)) dirty self And the view+rendering (literally the whole "upgraded-HTML" of the app) is so compact: def render var all = TodoList var active = all.filter do |todo| !todo.completed var done = all.filter do |todo| todo.completed var items = {'#/completed': done, '#/active': active}[hash] or all <self> <header.header> <h1> "todos" <new-todo-input.new-todo type='text' placeholder='What needs to be done?'> if all:length > 0 <section.main> <input.toggle-all type='checkbox' :change='toggleAll'> <ul.todo-list> for todo in items <li[todo]@{todo.id} .completed=(todo.completed) .editing=(todo.editing) > <div.view> <label :dblclick=['edit',todo]> todo.title <input.toggle type='checkbox' :change=['toggle',todo] checked=(todo.completed)> <button.destroy :tap=['drop',todo]> <edit-todo[todo].edit type='text'> ($$(.todoapp) or $$(body)).append #app I'd enjoy being able to code a SPA like this, I think - nice work! If something this clean is already possible in some other language/framework/library, I'd love to hear about it (since I haven't been following recent JS developments closely). edit: @judofyr, the Scroller example app doesn't work for me on Firefox 40.0.2 on Win 8. It works in Chrome.
- gosukiwi 11y ago
  How does it handle data binding?
  - creamyhorror 11y ago
    It looks similar to React's one-way data flow - that render method produces the whole app view, and refers to all the necessary variables. When an event occurs [e.g. the user types text to add and hits enter]: - the appropriate method is called [e.g. add] - which mutates the state [e.g. TodoList.push(TodoItem.new(title.trim))] - and then render is called, which updates the view/DOM So in a sense it's not really data-binding, IMO - instead, the render method contains the entire view + view logic, and it gets called each time the state is changed.

jlebrech 11y ago

I guess the title should be JS/React

lhorie 11y ago

Mithril author here. It does appear to have a React-like engine here: https://github.com/somebee/imba/blob/master/src/imba/dom.static.imba https://github.com/somebee/imba/blob/master/src/imba/dom.sta..., but from a quick glance, I can't tell if the quality of the engine is any good (e.g. whether it supports lifecycle methods, efficient sorts, jQuery plugins, etc) because there are no docs and I don't really have time to read the whole codebase right now. Same goes for the speed claim: can't tell if it's actual speed or "cheating" by batching multiple redraws on rAF while not batching them in the React demo. I'm guessing the latter. Also, I'm not sure I agree with claim of readable output js: http://somebee.github.io/todomvc-render-benchmark/todomvc/imba/js/app.js http://somebee.github.io/todomvc-render-benchmark/todomvc/im... (look at tag.prototype.render). It's not exactly clean, although it's not terrible either. With that being said, the language does look like it has some improvements over Coffeescript. The lack of docs is a showstopper for me, however.

judofyr 11y ago
> The lack of docs is a showstopper for me, however. That's a fair criticism. We know that docs are severely lacking. But at one point you'll have to release it. The reason it's been private for all these years is because there's always been just one more thing to fix. And this is just an open-source project. We just think this is a cool technology and want to share it with the rest of the community. > Same goes for the speed claim: can't tell if it's actual speed or "cheating" by batching multiple redraws on rAF and while not batching them in the React demo. I'm guessing the latter. Hah, we talked about this before the release. We actually thought about publishing worse results (or adding some code to slow it down) because we were afraid people wouldn't believe it. requestAnimationFrame isn't used in this demo. The repaint/redraw is not the thing we are trying to benchmark. We might as well hide the whole app during the benchmark, or even detach it from the document. It is trying to measure the performance of bringing the whole view "in sync". If there is something wrong with the way Mithril is forced to render, please file an issue. > lifecycle methods, efficient sorts, jQuery plugins There's probably some more lifecycle methods that could be useful, but the amount of lines written in Imba is in the magnitude of 100k. The current approach has been adequate for that. The sorting is quite efficient. We find the minimal amount of nodes that needs to be reordered. jQuery plugins should work fine as long as they don't touch the parents too much; Imba is quite good at keeping the DOM-node in the tree.

coldtea 11y ago

>This isn't a competitor to react; its a competitor to ES6/typescript/coffeescript. Perhaps you haven't looked at the examples. >React is a template library, not a language. Irrelevant -- and it's not such a clear cut distinction as you make it anyway. A new language can have built in first class support for react like templating -- and this does. >People aren't using react and angular because they have a nice syntax, that's just nice, they use them because you can build applications with them. Yeah, so the idea behind imba is that if you could do the same things WITH a nice syntax and first class support it would be better. Seriously do people read TFA?