6 ms·

I really want a nice OO language with Garbage Collector / ARC that compiles to native code on Windows, Mac and Linux. Swift is good, but Windows story is weak.

I really want a nice OO language with Garbage Collector / ARC that compiles to native code on Windows, Mac and Linux. Swift is good, but Windows story is weak. I am personally waiting for Kotlin Native to mature. Until that time Go it is.

shakna 9y ago
Red [0] has a fantastic cross-compilation story, is a tiny compiler, and is a kind of Lispy version of Object-Oriented. Includes GUI support in the native runtime. It's meant to be a sort of "better Rebol". [0] http://www.red-lang.org/p/getting-started.html http://www.red-lang.org/p/getting-started.html
- Shoothe 9y ago
  Red (and Rebol) are fantastic but unfortunately the learning curve is very steep for people that don't know it. I spent a month reading everything on the internet about Rebol, then Red was obvious but before that it's really hard to get into that world. IMHO Red should have something like a definitive book covering all aspects in one place (like [0]) because it has a vast array powerful features (URI, money, time literals, parse and other dialects) etc. Without concise but a complete guide the language appears to be just a weird "let's use [ ] instead of { }" construct. [0]: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920040385.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920040385.do
  - k__ 9y ago
    how can it have a learning curve for people already know it?
    - Shoothe 9y ago
      Because "already know it" is not a single defined point on that curve but rather a region. It's easy to prove by negative, if "already know X" would be so easy to pinpoint the entire recruiting industry would cease to exist.
- interfixus 9y ago
  Sadly, no 64-bit support.
  - shakna 9y ago
    Yet. [0] [0] https://github.com/red/red/issues/3115 https://github.com/red/red/issues/3115
- vram22 9y ago
  I've tried out Red a bit recently and REBOL more earlier, both are good. But IIRC, the GUI support (for Red) is not there equally on all the 3 major OS platforms (Win/Lin/MacOS) yet, last I checked. Hope it gets there, though. Edited to add: (for Red)
didibus 9y ago
Why not crystal?
- camus2 9y ago
  Because Crystal doesn't have a good Windows story.
- pritambarhate 9y ago
  Mainly because I am not familiar with Ruby. But if Krystal emerges with a strong library ecosystem, I will definitely consider it. Another factor is backing by an established company. Unfortunately Nim (I like Python a lot), D and Crystal are languages supported by relatively small communities. But I understand all languages start somewhere. Python, PHP, and Ruby are examples where one person languages eventually became very popular. I won't mind doing small CLI projects in Crystal, but for something that I do for a client which needs to stay in production for years, strong backing by a well-known company goes a long way. In fact, Go is an easy sell these days in the enterprise, once you drop words like Google, Docker, and Kubernates. Unfortunately, it's not sufficient to understand merits of a language to get your company/client to use a language. Business decision makers need some kind of social proof.
pjmlp 9y ago
Nim, D. C#, on Windows via .NET Native and NGEN. on Mac and Linux via Mono AOT (or CoreRT which is WIP) on iOS via Mono AOT Java (which I think is nice) also has quite a few commercial JDK native compiler options, Excelsior JET license is free for open source projects and OpenJDK is improving its own AOT story.
RX14 9y ago
Would you consider Crystal if it had a mature native Windows story?
- deedubaya 9y ago
  Not OP here -- but I've been putting off re-writing a mess of a nodejs to binary (nexe = huge binary, gah!) implementation of a simple utility http service in hopes that Crystal would gain windows support. I've been stalling for a few months. I have seen that you were able to make some progress here, awesome! It looks like Windows support for Crystal is too far off on the horizon, however. I'll be starting the re-write in Rust instead, unfortunately. I think there could be strong demand for Crystal on Windows. There are a lot of ruby devs out there or people who simply prefer writing ruby-like code, who would automatically jump to crystal _just_ for this reason.
  - RX14 9y ago
    Have you seen https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/3582 https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/3582 ?
lmm 9y ago
.net (C#/F#) has always had AOT compilation and is mature and now cross-platform. If Go is OO enough for you (it's not really OO in the traditional sense, so I'm not sure what you mean by "OO" if Go counts) then OCaml, Rust or even Haskell might also be good options.
- pritambarhate 9y ago
  No, Go isn't OO enough. That's the part I am looking for. Otherwise, Go clears rest of the needs. It compiles to native code which works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Also, it is a stable language, with good tooling and huge library ecosystem and a strong backing by a well-known company.
vintagedave 9y ago
Delphi. Similar to (inspired) C#, a non-C-style language, has ARC on mobile and Linux, and you can use the same idioms on Mac and Windows until the feature arrives for all platforms. Compiles to native. Nice features like RTTI, great UI, database, similar libraries. Disclaimer: I work for the company that makes it :) FWIW, I joined because I like it so much.
- shakna 9y ago
  Not to be confused with Arc, which powers HN.
- krylon 9y ago
  If only Delphi was not so expensive.[0] Having inherited maintenance of an in-house application written in Delphi, one thing I really come to love about Delphi is that there have been no nasty surprises from the syntax side. This might not sound like much of a compliment, but people who have had to decipher overly clever C or Perl code[1] will probably agree this a huge bonus. [0] I know, there is Free Pascal and Lazarus. I took both for a spin, hoping it might help me get to know Delphi, but Lazarus has crashed on me so frequently I quickly gave up. [1] Or C++, I guess. The only C++ code I have had to look at was really more like C + MFC and was devoid of any excessive cleverness and a marble of clarity. I imagine there are many crawling horrors out there written in C++, but I have never seen one myself.
  - vintagedave 9y ago
    The Starter version is free unless/until you make revenue. If you're using it at home, hobbyist, for dev until you start actually selling, it's free. The language clarity is part of the language's beauty, yes, definitely agree. It's very nice to work in.
    - tomc1985 9y ago
      What about Lazarus? Free, open-source, Delphi-like...
airstrike 9y ago
Boo lang. httpshttps://github.com/boo-lang/boo/blob/master/docs/BooManifesto.pdf https://github.com/boo-lang/boo/blob/master/docs/BooManifest...
zeveb 9y ago
> I really want a nice OO language with Garbage Collector / ARC that compiles to native code on Windows, Mac and Linux. SBCL[0] compiles to native code on Windows, Mac & Linux and is garbage collected. It implements an extremely nice OO language, Common Lisp[1]. The language is stable, and it's extremely powerful. SBCL is extremely fast as well, as fast or faster than C in many cases, when appropriate type declarations. Because it's by default a dynamic language, though, you don't need to declare types where you don't want to bother. [0] http://sbcl.org/ http://sbcl.org/ [1] http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-generic-functions.html http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-generic... http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-classes.html http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-classes...
flavio81 9y ago
Common Lisp. OOP with plenty of features (and more), compiles to native code on many platforms.

shakna 9y ago

Red [0] has a fantastic cross-compilation story, is a tiny compiler, and is a kind of Lispy version of Object-Oriented. Includes GUI support in the native runtime. It's meant to be a sort of "better Rebol". [0] http://www.red-lang.org/p/getting-started.html http://www.red-lang.org/p/getting-started.html

Shoothe 9y ago
Red (and Rebol) are fantastic but unfortunately the learning curve is very steep for people that don't know it. I spent a month reading everything on the internet about Rebol, then Red was obvious but before that it's really hard to get into that world. IMHO Red should have something like a definitive book covering all aspects in one place (like [0]) because it has a vast array powerful features (URI, money, time literals, parse and other dialects) etc. Without concise but a complete guide the language appears to be just a weird "let's use [ ] instead of { }" construct. [0]: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920040385.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920040385.do
- k__ 9y ago
  how can it have a learning curve for people already know it?
  - Shoothe 9y ago
    Because "already know it" is not a single defined point on that curve but rather a region. It's easy to prove by negative, if "already know X" would be so easy to pinpoint the entire recruiting industry would cease to exist.
interfixus 9y ago
Sadly, no 64-bit support.
- shakna 9y ago
  Yet. [0] [0] https://github.com/red/red/issues/3115 https://github.com/red/red/issues/3115
vram22 9y ago
I've tried out Red a bit recently and REBOL more earlier, both are good. But IIRC, the GUI support (for Red) is not there equally on all the 3 major OS platforms (Win/Lin/MacOS) yet, last I checked. Hope it gets there, though. Edited to add: (for Red)

didibus 9y ago

Why not crystal?

camus2 9y ago
Because Crystal doesn't have a good Windows story.
pritambarhate 9y ago
Mainly because I am not familiar with Ruby. But if Krystal emerges with a strong library ecosystem, I will definitely consider it. Another factor is backing by an established company. Unfortunately Nim (I like Python a lot), D and Crystal are languages supported by relatively small communities. But I understand all languages start somewhere. Python, PHP, and Ruby are examples where one person languages eventually became very popular. I won't mind doing small CLI projects in Crystal, but for something that I do for a client which needs to stay in production for years, strong backing by a well-known company goes a long way. In fact, Go is an easy sell these days in the enterprise, once you drop words like Google, Docker, and Kubernates. Unfortunately, it's not sufficient to understand merits of a language to get your company/client to use a language. Business decision makers need some kind of social proof.

pjmlp 9y ago

Nim, D. C#, on Windows via .NET Native and NGEN. on Mac and Linux via Mono AOT (or CoreRT which is WIP) on iOS via Mono AOT Java (which I think is nice) also has quite a few commercial JDK native compiler options, Excelsior JET license is free for open source projects and OpenJDK is improving its own AOT story.

RX14 9y ago

Would you consider Crystal if it had a mature native Windows story?

deedubaya 9y ago
Not OP here -- but I've been putting off re-writing a mess of a nodejs to binary (nexe = huge binary, gah!) implementation of a simple utility http service in hopes that Crystal would gain windows support. I've been stalling for a few months. I have seen that you were able to make some progress here, awesome! It looks like Windows support for Crystal is too far off on the horizon, however. I'll be starting the re-write in Rust instead, unfortunately. I think there could be strong demand for Crystal on Windows. There are a lot of ruby devs out there or people who simply prefer writing ruby-like code, who would automatically jump to crystal _just_ for this reason.
- RX14 9y ago
  Have you seen https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/3582 https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/pull/3582 ?

lmm 9y ago

.net (C#/F#) has always had AOT compilation and is mature and now cross-platform. If Go is OO enough for you (it's not really OO in the traditional sense, so I'm not sure what you mean by "OO" if Go counts) then OCaml, Rust or even Haskell might also be good options.

pritambarhate 9y ago
No, Go isn't OO enough. That's the part I am looking for. Otherwise, Go clears rest of the needs. It compiles to native code which works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Also, it is a stable language, with good tooling and huge library ecosystem and a strong backing by a well-known company.

vintagedave 9y ago

Delphi. Similar to (inspired) C#, a non-C-style language, has ARC on mobile and Linux, and you can use the same idioms on Mac and Windows until the feature arrives for all platforms. Compiles to native. Nice features like RTTI, great UI, database, similar libraries. Disclaimer: I work for the company that makes it :) FWIW, I joined because I like it so much.

shakna 9y ago
Not to be confused with Arc, which powers HN.
krylon 9y ago
If only Delphi was not so expensive.[0] Having inherited maintenance of an in-house application written in Delphi, one thing I really come to love about Delphi is that there have been no nasty surprises from the syntax side. This might not sound like much of a compliment, but people who have had to decipher overly clever C or Perl code[1] will probably agree this a huge bonus. [0] I know, there is Free Pascal and Lazarus. I took both for a spin, hoping it might help me get to know Delphi, but Lazarus has crashed on me so frequently I quickly gave up. [1] Or C++, I guess. The only C++ code I have had to look at was really more like C + MFC and was devoid of any excessive cleverness and a marble of clarity. I imagine there are many crawling horrors out there written in C++, but I have never seen one myself.
- vintagedave 9y ago
  The Starter version is free unless/until you make revenue. If you're using it at home, hobbyist, for dev until you start actually selling, it's free. The language clarity is part of the language's beauty, yes, definitely agree. It's very nice to work in.
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    What about Lazarus? Free, open-source, Delphi-like...

airstrike 9y ago

Boo lang. httpshttps://github.com/boo-lang/boo/blob/master/docs/BooManifesto.pdf https://github.com/boo-lang/boo/blob/master/docs/BooManifest...

zeveb 9y ago

> I really want a nice OO language with Garbage Collector / ARC that compiles to native code on Windows, Mac and Linux. SBCL[0] compiles to native code on Windows, Mac & Linux and is garbage collected. It implements an extremely nice OO language, Common Lisp[1]. The language is stable, and it's extremely powerful. SBCL is extremely fast as well, as fast or faster than C in many cases, when appropriate type declarations. Because it's by default a dynamic language, though, you don't need to declare types where you don't want to bother. [0] http://sbcl.org/ http://sbcl.org/ [1] http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-generic-functions.html http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-generic... http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-classes.html http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-classes...

flavio81 9y ago

Common Lisp. OOP with plenty of features (and more), compiles to native code on many platforms.