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Wow, that project sounds like a total dumpster fire. Not that I know any of the details, of course, but I find it hard to believe that it saved any effort to tr
by thinkpad20 9y ago
Wow, that project sounds like a total dumpster fire. Not that I know any of the details, of course, but I find it hard to believe that it saved any effort to try to write a compiler and a custom language/type system/code generator/etc versus just embarking on a rewrite of the code in question. To be honest I’m surprised that even in hindsight he seems to think it was a good idea, as I read it as a cautionary tale.
- alexgartrell 9y agoWasabi could compile VBScript, which was the language they had at the time. It's actually a more or less identical approach to the one Facebook took with Hack, but Facebook had a lot more resource to make it awesome.
- thinkpad20 9y agoIt started out as compiling VBScript but from my understanding it became its own beast, with all kinds of bells and whistles. Yes, definitely there can be valid reasons to write your own language/compiler etc. Of course, the size of the Facebook code base, not to mention engineering team, put it in a clear class of its own. And the Hack project was run by people with extensive experience in compilers and type systems, not a summer intern... hah. But yeah, it’s not a bad idea in all cases. Facebook, google, Microsoft and many others have invented new languages and/or written compilers. And I’m sure there are valid reasons for a small organization to do it as well — but I fail to see what made it justified in this case. Then again the product didn’t go belly-up, so there’s that.
- thinkpad20 9y agoDownvotes? What did I get wrong here?
- watwut 9y agoWriting compiler is not necessary super hard if you are ok with it being slow.