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How to build cross-platform mobile apps with JSON

65 points by quincyla 10y ago

garrettgrimsley 10y ago
Typo in title. Should read "How to build mobile apps in JSON." And drop the "Yes, JSON" bit.
- vog 10y ago
  Not sure why this was downvoted. The click-baity "Yes, JSON" is really annoying and should be removed. More generally, the title should be corrected to the actual title, which is almost fine: "How to build cross-platform mobile apps using nothing more than a JSON markup" Maybe remove the click-baity "nothing more than" part, but other than that, the original title is much better than the submission title.
MichaelBurge 10y ago
That's nothing. I can write a chess engine using nothing more than the Latin alphabet, Arabic numerals, and a couple punctuation characters. All you have to do is compose these building blocks in the right way, and gcc will take care of the rest.
relics443 10y ago
I've seen so many projects like this over the years that claim that they're the one that will allow for true cross platform app development, and they've developed a simple abstraction for doing so. I've never seen any succeed at anything more than the most basic apps. I put more stock in projects like Xamarin or MOE (and even they aren't perfect).
- drwasho 10y ago
  I understand the sentiment, which is why I approached Jasonette with some curiosity mixed with scepticism... which I quickly turned into obsession! The platform is incredible and I've been able to build a complex app in no time at all. Give it a try, you'll be surprised. I'm in the Slack room too if you need trouble shooting.
aaron-santos 10y ago
So why JSON of all things? When I reached the "write a full declarative program in JSON" section I was internally screaming "but s-expressions!"
- cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
  can you elaborate on s-expressions?
  - emeraldd 10y ago
    About four paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language) "The interchangeability of code and data gives Lisp its instantly recognizable syntax. All program code is written as s-expressions, or parenthesized lists. A function call or syntactic form is written as a list with the function or operator's name first, and the arguments following; for instance, a function f that takes three arguments would be called as (f arg1 arg2 arg3)."
    - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
      Oh yeah, I understand that part. I was just wondering what OP meant in his sentence.
      - bpicolo 10y ago
        Meaning it's going far out of it's way to half-write a programming language in json rather than actually just using a lisp.
        cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
        But why would you use lisp? I don't get it. No API returns data in a list format.
        10y ago
zn44 10y ago
http://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-inner-json-effect http://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-inner-json-effect
kafkaesq 10y ago
The framework and approach described might be useful in some cases, but... you still need to understand CSS, HTML, and... pretty much everything about webfrontendism to meaningfully design and "build" such an app, of course (even if you do manage to cram all that metadata into a single JSON file). So it's a bullshit title, basically.
redindian75 10y ago
It is made by the guy who made TextEthan. direct link: http://jasonette.com http://jasonette.com
Entangled 10y ago
If it can be done in JSON it can also be done in YAML. I pick YAML.
- crooked-v 10y ago
  If the idea is to reduce verbosity, I'd much prefer CSON. YAML just has way too much "magic" parsing behavior.
  - Entangled 10y ago
    Not bad, a second close just behind YAML in my picks. Nothing can beat this: name: Taylor Swift Absolutely nothing, no matter how you dress it.
    - mst 10y ago
      I prefer name "Taylor Swift" which is how JSONY works (which was an experiment ingy and I put together)
    - allover 10y ago
      Right, but the problem is YAML parsers are crazy hard to implement correctly/safely. Its spec is an order-of-magnitude more complex than JSON.
- seagreen 10y ago
  Have you read the specs for both? You should read the JSON spec. It will take you ten minutes. The YAML spec (http://yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html http://yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html) may take you a little longer. . .
  - Entangled 10y ago
    S-expressions will take you ten seconds still nobody uses them. YAML is made to simplify the lives of the reader and the writer, not the parser. Let the parser suffer, let the coder rejoice. You pick your own level of suffering, I pick mine. Deal?
gambler 10y ago
JSON is the new XML. Except XML was actually designed to have semantics, while similar attempts in JSON are just hacks. In general, JavaScript is becoming the new J2EE. Ambitious ideas, clueless implementations, insane complexity.
- allover 10y ago
  1. OP article has nothing to do with JavaScript. 2. It's not like the JS community is anti-XML, most JS libs/frameworks still use HTML/XML markup for rendering. 3. The JS community is vast and diverse - generalisations around 'clueless implementations, insane complexity' don't make a lot of sense.
  - devwastaken 10y ago
    >It's not like the JS community is anti-XML, most JS libs/frameworks still use HTML/XML markup for rendering. Its pretty anti-XML outside of node. Pure-js solutions for xml are not as great as built in features other languages provide, while JS only natively does JSON. >generalisations around 'clueless implementations, insane complexity' don't make a lot of sense. When you are creating languages that compile to JS and adding entire markup ontop of it along with literally hundreds of dependencies in any average project, JS has plenty of insane complexity.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
      > When you are creating languages that compile to JS and adding entire markup ontop of it along with literally hundreds of dependencies in any average project, JS has plenty of insane complexity. Like parent said, this project doesn't compile to JS. It's simply a JSON to native mapping.
  - gambler 10y ago
    >1. OP article has nothing to do with JavaScript. JSON is a format directly derived from JavaScript. The affinity for using JSON for things that have nothing to do with object serialization or simple data structures is characteristic of JS mentality. >2. It's not like the JS community is anti-XML, most JS libs/frameworks still use HTML/XML markup for rendering. Of course JS community is anti-XML. They don't use XML even when it makes sense to do so. And they use HTML only as a rendering layer, completely ignoring its other use (e.g. semantic document format).
degenerate 10y ago
A heads up for anyone wondering if this can do anything "real" on the phone (such as, you know, take a picture or access the memory card): https://forum.jasonette.com/t/media-in-android-port/79/2 https://forum.jasonette.com/t/media-in-android-port/79/2 Short answer: Sort of (on iOS) and No, not yet (on Android)
cryptozeus 10y ago
But why ? What does it solve ? This is xml xslt alk over again.

65 points by quincyla 10y ago

garrettgrimsley 10y ago

Typo in title. Should read "How to build mobile apps in JSON." And drop the "Yes, JSON" bit.

vog 10y ago
Not sure why this was downvoted. The click-baity "Yes, JSON" is really annoying and should be removed. More generally, the title should be corrected to the actual title, which is almost fine: "How to build cross-platform mobile apps using nothing more than a JSON markup" Maybe remove the click-baity "nothing more than" part, but other than that, the original title is much better than the submission title.

MichaelBurge 10y ago

That's nothing. I can write a chess engine using nothing more than the Latin alphabet, Arabic numerals, and a couple punctuation characters. All you have to do is compose these building blocks in the right way, and gcc will take care of the rest.

relics443 10y ago

I've seen so many projects like this over the years that claim that they're the one that will allow for true cross platform app development, and they've developed a simple abstraction for doing so. I've never seen any succeed at anything more than the most basic apps. I put more stock in projects like Xamarin or MOE (and even they aren't perfect).

drwasho 10y ago
I understand the sentiment, which is why I approached Jasonette with some curiosity mixed with scepticism... which I quickly turned into obsession! The platform is incredible and I've been able to build a complex app in no time at all. Give it a try, you'll be surprised. I'm in the Slack room too if you need trouble shooting.

aaron-santos 10y ago

So why JSON of all things? When I reached the "write a full declarative program in JSON" section I was internally screaming "but s-expressions!"

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
can you elaborate on s-expressions?
- emeraldd 10y ago
  About four paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language) "The interchangeability of code and data gives Lisp its instantly recognizable syntax. All program code is written as s-expressions, or parenthesized lists. A function call or syntactic form is written as a list with the function or operator's name first, and the arguments following; for instance, a function f that takes three arguments would be called as (f arg1 arg2 arg3)."
  - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
    Oh yeah, I understand that part. I was just wondering what OP meant in his sentence.
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      Meaning it's going far out of it's way to half-write a programming language in json rather than actually just using a lisp.
      - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
        But why would you use lisp? I don't get it. No API returns data in a list format.
        10y ago

zn44 10y ago

http://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-inner-json-effect http://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-inner-json-effect

kafkaesq 10y ago

The framework and approach described might be useful in some cases, but... you still need to understand CSS, HTML, and... pretty much everything about webfrontendism to meaningfully design and "build" such an app, of course (even if you do manage to cram all that metadata into a single JSON file). So it's a bullshit title, basically.

redindian75 10y ago

It is made by the guy who made TextEthan. direct link: http://jasonette.com http://jasonette.com

Entangled 10y ago

If it can be done in JSON it can also be done in YAML. I pick YAML.

crooked-v 10y ago
If the idea is to reduce verbosity, I'd much prefer CSON. YAML just has way too much "magic" parsing behavior.
- Entangled 10y ago
  Not bad, a second close just behind YAML in my picks. Nothing can beat this: name: Taylor Swift Absolutely nothing, no matter how you dress it.
  - mst 10y ago
    I prefer name "Taylor Swift" which is how JSONY works (which was an experiment ingy and I put together)
  - allover 10y ago
    Right, but the problem is YAML parsers are crazy hard to implement correctly/safely. Its spec is an order-of-magnitude more complex than JSON.
seagreen 10y ago
Have you read the specs for both? You should read the JSON spec. It will take you ten minutes. The YAML spec (http://yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html http://yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html) may take you a little longer. . .
- Entangled 10y ago
  S-expressions will take you ten seconds still nobody uses them. YAML is made to simplify the lives of the reader and the writer, not the parser. Let the parser suffer, let the coder rejoice. You pick your own level of suffering, I pick mine. Deal?

gambler 10y ago

JSON is the new XML. Except XML was actually designed to have semantics, while similar attempts in JSON are just hacks. In general, JavaScript is becoming the new J2EE. Ambitious ideas, clueless implementations, insane complexity.

allover 10y ago
1. OP article has nothing to do with JavaScript. 2. It's not like the JS community is anti-XML, most JS libs/frameworks still use HTML/XML markup for rendering. 3. The JS community is vast and diverse - generalisations around 'clueless implementations, insane complexity' don't make a lot of sense.
- devwastaken 10y ago
  >It's not like the JS community is anti-XML, most JS libs/frameworks still use HTML/XML markup for rendering. Its pretty anti-XML outside of node. Pure-js solutions for xml are not as great as built in features other languages provide, while JS only natively does JSON. >generalisations around 'clueless implementations, insane complexity' don't make a lot of sense. When you are creating languages that compile to JS and adding entire markup ontop of it along with literally hundreds of dependencies in any average project, JS has plenty of insane complexity.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
    > When you are creating languages that compile to JS and adding entire markup ontop of it along with literally hundreds of dependencies in any average project, JS has plenty of insane complexity. Like parent said, this project doesn't compile to JS. It's simply a JSON to native mapping.
- gambler 10y ago
  >1. OP article has nothing to do with JavaScript. JSON is a format directly derived from JavaScript. The affinity for using JSON for things that have nothing to do with object serialization or simple data structures is characteristic of JS mentality. >2. It's not like the JS community is anti-XML, most JS libs/frameworks still use HTML/XML markup for rendering. Of course JS community is anti-XML. They don't use XML even when it makes sense to do so. And they use HTML only as a rendering layer, completely ignoring its other use (e.g. semantic document format).

degenerate 10y ago

A heads up for anyone wondering if this can do anything "real" on the phone (such as, you know, take a picture or access the memory card): https://forum.jasonette.com/t/media-in-android-port/79/2 https://forum.jasonette.com/t/media-in-android-port/79/2 Short answer: Sort of (on iOS) and No, not yet (on Android)

cryptozeus 10y ago

But why ? What does it solve ? This is xml xslt alk over again.