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I'd love to see more about Jai. I don't understand why they are not working in the open, this is a tool, not a game, input for a large community is extremely v

I'd love to see more about Jai. I don't understand why they are not working in the open, this is a tool, not a game, input for a large community is extremely valuable. But as brilliant as Jon Blow is, he is at least equally as stubborn. Fast compilation and nice, easy to read syntax with good default is exactly what I am looking for. I can understand the hype about metaprogramming, and its potential usefulness, but I also think this is a pandora box. Pretty much like C macros and C++ templates, overuse can lead to a very messy codebase, hard to read, hard to debug, with a lot of unexpected side effects.

hbn 4y ago
I don't see why a language can't be one guy's passion project. Even if he releases it and it turns out he's the only person that likes it, so what? It's not like he's had millions in VC or government investment dumped into it or something. He's got some ideas and he's implementing them. I'm interested to see how it turns out. Golang has had success and was primarily made in private by 3 guys and hasn't strayed too far from the original founding principles they came up with.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  Yeah, of course he can do whatever he wants. The think is that quite a few people have been convinced by his talks and want to use Jai for real projects.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    If there's enough actual interest, some group of people will just clone the language in an open manner since enough is known about it. But that doesn't seem to be happening at the moment.
    - cyber_kinetist 4y ago
      I thought Odin was one of the clone languages at the start (although later it diverged from Jai in many aspects, and is far ahead Jai in the aspect that it's open-source and is actually being used in production). But really I would like Jai to take some time to mature over the years, instead of rushing out for an immediate public release. It has some very ambitious ideas that would absolutely be killer features, but I think it needs ample time to get polished. (Off to writing C++ code during the time then...)
      - suby 4y ago
        Odin has similar syntax, but one of the main reasons I am interested in Jai is because it has strong meta-programming support[0], where as Odin doesn't and will likely never due to the author of the language not wanting to go in that direction. [0] - https://github.com/Jai-Community/Jai-Community-Library/wiki/Metaprogramming https://github.com/Jai-Community/Jai-Community-Library/wiki/...
        stephc_int13 4y ago
        What do you think about Zig? I am not a fan of metaprogramming, but this is a relatively important feature of Zig.
        cyber_kinetist 4y ago
        Yeah, I have about the same opinions. Odin made a conscious decision to not invest much in compile-time metaprogramming, and as a result was able to actually ship things without spending too much time on language design. But it’s a bit less ambitious than what Jai was trying to do.
      - germandiago 4y ago
        which killer features?
- ok123456 4y ago
  Unless it's being designed from committee from the start, most languages start off as a 'passion project.' But, there is a point where they have to bring in more people to handle the work and mitigate the single point of failure.
  - curtainsforus 4y ago
    I think he bought in more people at one point, then sent them away again when he realized he wasn't able to keep the project on track with that many chefs making the soup. The problem with more people is that the project can very easily degenerate into design by committee.
3a2d29 4y ago
It’s hard to find any material on Jai. It seems to be a “better C”. Isn’t that what D / Zig try to do? What’s the advantage?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  I think that Jai / Zig / Odin all started around the same time. D is closer to C++ than C, in my opinion. I suspect that Jai was an inspiration for Zig and Odin. Many developers in gamedev circles are still using C or orthodox C++ (C++ without most of the bullshit) but are frustrated by many features and gaps. Short compilation time is one of the big goals, as it is crucial for fast iteration. The goal is simply to have a powerful low-level/system language that is enjoyable to use. Or at least more enjoyable than C++. (the de-facto standard)
  - 3a2d29 4y ago
    Right that makes sense. I’m curious if the gaming industry will switch languages, it feels like with the current game engines that it’s heavily entrenched in C and C++. Feels like something like Carbon has the best chance to break in.
    - stephc_int13 4y ago
      Only time will tell. But I think there is an opportunity at this point in time.
    - oxryly1 4y ago
      A chunk has already switched to C# with Unity. Most other engines (proprietary, Unreal, etc) have decades of C++ that would require too much effort to migrate to anything new.
      - cmovq 4y ago
_trackno5 4y ago
> input for a large community is extremely valuable it’s also an extreme time suck. Having everyone opine on their pet feature would just take away from the focused work the people at Thekla are doing. Honestly, I don’t even see why Jon should make things open source (apart from it being a major incentive for people to adopt it). The performance improvements they are offering compared to other languages 100% warrant charging for it.
henry_viii 4y ago
I'm surprised the author didn't mention the Lobster programming language when evaluating a successor language: https://github.com/aardappel/lobster https://github.com/aardappel/lobster The language seems to be exactly what he was looking for - a high-performance high-level language specifically designed for video games.
- cyber_kinetist 4y ago
  From a glance at the language description, this is very different from what he is looking from Jai. I don't see any description of it having metaprogramming facilities as good as D or Jai (or even C++!).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
seabass 4y ago
> input for a large community is extremely valuable In the early stages, everyone has a thousand opinions and it’s not clear even to those working in jai daily what exactly the language wants to become and which patterns should be supported. From what I understand, Blow intends to gradually open things up as the project matures, which I think is 100% the right approach for something fairly experimental and with a lot of new ideas.
- dymk 4y ago
  It's 8 years old
  - mumblemumble 4y ago
    For a volunteer developed programming language, that's almost certainly early stages. Calendar years is not a good measure of how much work has gone into a language. Think in terms of person-hours instead.
bsder 4y ago
> I don't understand why they are not working in the open, this is a tool, not a game, input for a large community is extremely valuable. Ayup. Talking about JAI is simply a waste of time until they put it in the open under a genuine open-source license. Otherwise, you wind up with situations like "Our Machinery".
- throwaway17_17 4y ago
  Just curious, but when you genuine open-source license what do you include? Going back to the earliest talks on a potential language Blow cites a non-GPL, permissive license as his probable license. I know some folks tend to not count BSD, Public Domain, etc as open source.
  - bsder 4y ago
    Certainly anything OSI is acceptable. GPL isn't my cup of tea, but it's fine, too. Owner/authors are doing the work and if you don't like what license they choose, you can go elsewhere. As long as no entity can retroactively revoke your ability to use the source code, it's probably sufficient. As things currently stand, that is NOT true for JAI.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    > I know some folks tend to not count BSD, Public Domain, etc as open source. This isn’t true, unless you’re talking about some niche opinion held by a few eccentric people. Even Richard Stillman, probably the most ardent and uncompromising copyleft activist in the world (elevating the GPL to nearly religious status) accepts that non-copyleft licenses like BSD are open-source (and free software, a term he prefers).
uvtc 4y ago
> I don't understand why they are not working in the open, > Fast compilation and nice, easy to read syntax with good default is exactly what I am looking for. > [re metaprogramming] ... but I also think this is a pandora box. Sounds like you might also like [Hare](https://harelang.org/ https://harelang.org/). (has some work-in-progress [SDL2 bindings](https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/hare-sdl2 https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/hare-sdl2))
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

hbn 4y ago

I don't see why a language can't be one guy's passion project. Even if he releases it and it turns out he's the only person that likes it, so what? It's not like he's had millions in VC or government investment dumped into it or something. He's got some ideas and he's implementing them. I'm interested to see how it turns out. Golang has had success and was primarily made in private by 3 guys and hasn't strayed too far from the original founding principles they came up with.

stephc_int13 4y ago
Yeah, of course he can do whatever he wants. The think is that quite a few people have been convinced by his talks and want to use Jai for real projects.
- googlryas 4y ago
  If there's enough actual interest, some group of people will just clone the language in an open manner since enough is known about it. But that doesn't seem to be happening at the moment.
  - cyber_kinetist 4y ago
    I thought Odin was one of the clone languages at the start (although later it diverged from Jai in many aspects, and is far ahead Jai in the aspect that it's open-source and is actually being used in production). But really I would like Jai to take some time to mature over the years, instead of rushing out for an immediate public release. It has some very ambitious ideas that would absolutely be killer features, but I think it needs ample time to get polished. (Off to writing C++ code during the time then...)
    - suby 4y ago
      Odin has similar syntax, but one of the main reasons I am interested in Jai is because it has strong meta-programming support[0], where as Odin doesn't and will likely never due to the author of the language not wanting to go in that direction. [0] - https://github.com/Jai-Community/Jai-Community-Library/wiki/Metaprogramming https://github.com/Jai-Community/Jai-Community-Library/wiki/...
      - stephc_int13 4y ago
        What do you think about Zig? I am not a fan of metaprogramming, but this is a relatively important feature of Zig.
      - cyber_kinetist 4y ago
        Yeah, I have about the same opinions. Odin made a conscious decision to not invest much in compile-time metaprogramming, and as a result was able to actually ship things without spending too much time on language design. But it’s a bit less ambitious than what Jai was trying to do.
    - germandiago 4y ago
      which killer features?
ok123456 4y ago
Unless it's being designed from committee from the start, most languages start off as a 'passion project.' But, there is a point where they have to bring in more people to handle the work and mitigate the single point of failure.
- curtainsforus 4y ago
  I think he bought in more people at one point, then sent them away again when he realized he wasn't able to keep the project on track with that many chefs making the soup. The problem with more people is that the project can very easily degenerate into design by committee.

3a2d29 4y ago

It’s hard to find any material on Jai. It seems to be a “better C”. Isn’t that what D / Zig try to do? What’s the advantage?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stephc_int13 4y ago
I think that Jai / Zig / Odin all started around the same time. D is closer to C++ than C, in my opinion. I suspect that Jai was an inspiration for Zig and Odin. Many developers in gamedev circles are still using C or orthodox C++ (C++ without most of the bullshit) but are frustrated by many features and gaps. Short compilation time is one of the big goals, as it is crucial for fast iteration. The goal is simply to have a powerful low-level/system language that is enjoyable to use. Or at least more enjoyable than C++. (the de-facto standard)
- 3a2d29 4y ago
  Right that makes sense. I’m curious if the gaming industry will switch languages, it feels like with the current game engines that it’s heavily entrenched in C and C++. Feels like something like Carbon has the best chance to break in.
  - stephc_int13 4y ago
    Only time will tell. But I think there is an opportunity at this point in time.
  - oxryly1 4y ago
    A chunk has already switched to C# with Unity. Most other engines (proprietary, Unreal, etc) have decades of C++ that would require too much effort to migrate to anything new.
    - cmovq 4y ago

_trackno5 4y ago

> input for a large community is extremely valuable it’s also an extreme time suck. Having everyone opine on their pet feature would just take away from the focused work the people at Thekla are doing. Honestly, I don’t even see why Jon should make things open source (apart from it being a major incentive for people to adopt it). The performance improvements they are offering compared to other languages 100% warrant charging for it.

henry_viii 4y ago

I'm surprised the author didn't mention the Lobster programming language when evaluating a successor language: https://github.com/aardappel/lobster https://github.com/aardappel/lobster The language seems to be exactly what he was looking for - a high-performance high-level language specifically designed for video games.

cyber_kinetist 4y ago
From a glance at the language description, this is very different from what he is looking from Jai. I don't see any description of it having metaprogramming facilities as good as D or Jai (or even C++!).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

seabass 4y ago

> input for a large community is extremely valuable In the early stages, everyone has a thousand opinions and it’s not clear even to those working in jai daily what exactly the language wants to become and which patterns should be supported. From what I understand, Blow intends to gradually open things up as the project matures, which I think is 100% the right approach for something fairly experimental and with a lot of new ideas.

dymk 4y ago
It's 8 years old
- mumblemumble 4y ago
  For a volunteer developed programming language, that's almost certainly early stages. Calendar years is not a good measure of how much work has gone into a language. Think in terms of person-hours instead.

bsder 4y ago

> I don't understand why they are not working in the open, this is a tool, not a game, input for a large community is extremely valuable. Ayup. Talking about JAI is simply a waste of time until they put it in the open under a genuine open-source license. Otherwise, you wind up with situations like "Our Machinery".

throwaway17_17 4y ago
Just curious, but when you genuine open-source license what do you include? Going back to the earliest talks on a potential language Blow cites a non-GPL, permissive license as his probable license. I know some folks tend to not count BSD, Public Domain, etc as open source.
- bsder 4y ago
  Certainly anything OSI is acceptable. GPL isn't my cup of tea, but it's fine, too. Owner/authors are doing the work and if you don't like what license they choose, you can go elsewhere. As long as no entity can retroactively revoke your ability to use the source code, it's probably sufficient. As things currently stand, that is NOT true for JAI.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  > I know some folks tend to not count BSD, Public Domain, etc as open source. This isn’t true, unless you’re talking about some niche opinion held by a few eccentric people. Even Richard Stillman, probably the most ardent and uncompromising copyleft activist in the world (elevating the GPL to nearly religious status) accepts that non-copyleft licenses like BSD are open-source (and free software, a term he prefers).

uvtc 4y ago

> I don't understand why they are not working in the open, > Fast compilation and nice, easy to read syntax with good default is exactly what I am looking for. > [re metaprogramming] ... but I also think this is a pandora box. Sounds like you might also like [Hare](https://harelang.org/ https://harelang.org/). (has some work-in-progress [SDL2 bindings](https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/hare-sdl2 https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/hare-sdl2))

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]