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You haven’t made any arguments about why Javascript isn’t good for building UIs there. Here’s mine for why it is: - first class functions (callback style is a

by davedx 6y ago

You haven’t made any arguments about why Javascript isn’t good for building UIs there. Here’s mine for why it is: - first class functions (callback style is a good fit for UI programming) - async/await and single threaded - many components of UIs are async by nature, Javascript supports you well here while keeping things simple with its single threaded model

vertex-four 6y ago
There's... a large number of languages with both of those features.
- scotty79 6y ago
  Could you name few better than js?
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    In the context of writing reliable software for a spacecraft? Pretty much anything with a reasonable type system, for a start. Maybe C#, or some reasonable subset of C++20, or Rust. Maybe Reason or OCaml.
    - errantspark 6y ago
      I mean very clearly the good people at SpaceX have heard of these languages and decided against it. I think JS and Chromium are the best UI kit I can think of in terms of man hours to get X done. If you're careful the only thing I've ever had issues with is latency, but in space if you're in a situation where missing a frame or two is important you're already beyond fucked.
      - zeroc8 6y ago
        From my experience, Qt/QML is way better for things like that. I mean, the UI does not need to be responsive, does it? Maybe they couldn't afford the Qt license.
    - davedx 6y ago
      Many people are using TypeScript these days, it works very well. I like C# and Rust too. I've built UI's in C++ and MFC/OpenGL/DirectX. It remains my fairly strong opinion that JavaScript is well suited to UI development.
heavyset_go 6y ago
Sharing the UI thread with logic is something to be mitigated when building UIs, it's not a feature.
- davedx 6y ago
  In theory, maybe. In practice, your UI thread very rarely has to do the kind of heavy lifting that would block it so badly you actually have problems. I have encountered this -- for example parsing very large incoming JSON payloads -- but very rarely. And if you really need to mitigate it, there are webworkers.

by davedx 6y ago

vertex-four 6y ago

There's... a large number of languages with both of those features.

scotty79 6y ago
Could you name few better than js?
- vertex-four 6y ago
  In the context of writing reliable software for a spacecraft? Pretty much anything with a reasonable type system, for a start. Maybe C#, or some reasonable subset of C++20, or Rust. Maybe Reason or OCaml.
  - errantspark 6y ago
    I mean very clearly the good people at SpaceX have heard of these languages and decided against it. I think JS and Chromium are the best UI kit I can think of in terms of man hours to get X done. If you're careful the only thing I've ever had issues with is latency, but in space if you're in a situation where missing a frame or two is important you're already beyond fucked.
    - zeroc8 6y ago
      From my experience, Qt/QML is way better for things like that. I mean, the UI does not need to be responsive, does it? Maybe they couldn't afford the Qt license.
  - davedx 6y ago
    Many people are using TypeScript these days, it works very well. I like C# and Rust too. I've built UI's in C++ and MFC/OpenGL/DirectX. It remains my fairly strong opinion that JavaScript is well suited to UI development.

heavyset_go 6y ago

Sharing the UI thread with logic is something to be mitigated when building UIs, it's not a feature.

davedx 6y ago
In theory, maybe. In practice, your UI thread very rarely has to do the kind of heavy lifting that would block it so badly you actually have problems. I have encountered this -- for example parsing very large incoming JSON payloads -- but very rarely. And if you really need to mitigate it, there are webworkers.