4 ms·

Haxe is interesting only because of its targets. No advanced type features at all.

mahmud 14y ago
Or advanced anything else for that matter. Cannese is a really bright programmer though; man built a programming language with an interesting runtime, and manages to use them for his one-man game studio. Not bad.
- jdonaldson 14y ago
  Nicolas "Cannasse" just left his company, I'm not sure what he's up to next. It should be interesting to see.
  - sspiff 14y ago
    Where did you hear/read this?
    - nickmain 14y ago
      http://ncannasse.fr/blog/time_for_new_adventures http://ncannasse.fr/blog/time_for_new_adventures
stewbrew 14y ago
Why does a language have to have advanced whatever features if it does the job, i.e. if it's good enough to write most of a cross-platform app in a maintainable manner while producing efficient code? Note: I am not a haxe user and would be interested in comments of actual users with respect to the compiler's reliability. My personal conception is that it is quite difficult to define a stable language that defines exactly the same on all targets.
- joneil 14y ago
  I'm a haxe user. What exactly are you wanting to know? If by reliability you are talking about it consistently not breaking between versions, then it's fine. Between versions the compiler does add new features but for the most part backwards compatibility has been kept between major versions. If you're talking about does it consistently produce similar code across platforms, then it depends. Plenty of people are using it for 2D games (targetting flash, Android and iOS) and it seems suitable for this. Outside of that, it basically comes down to this: if you want your code to work cross platform, stick to the standard library or to known cross-platform libraries. As an example, I had a piece of code which took markdown text input, converted it to HTML, and then manipulated the resulting HTML. The code worked on Javascript, Neko and CPP without modifications, because I stuck to existing cross platform libraries.
- jdonaldson 14y ago
  I think Haxe is unique in the balance it is trying to find between compilation speed, platform consistency/reach, and advanced language features. My personal observation is that Nicolas and the other language authors seem to prioritize things as I've just listed them. Compilation speed thing is a "big deal" that I don't hear talked about a lot on HN. Haxe's compiler is so fast that it provides autocompletions by itself. So, completing fields from "using" mixins, constructor inference, structural types, or macro generated methods are all very fast, and guaranteed to be correct. So, perhaps while Haxe's features are not as robust as a few other languages, they feel much more tightly integrated with most coding workflows.
joneil 14y ago
What sort of advanced features are you hoping for? Genuinely interested, I use Haxe and find it's type system advanced enough for me - but maybe there's awesome features in other languages that I don't know about yet.
- novalis 14y ago
  User is probably referencing concepts wich are not "advanced" per si, they are simply recent implementations of type concepts, we should keep in mind that these tend to make for not so efficient languages and Haxe is pointed at the other side of that spectrum. User seems to be some sort of Java api aficionado so I wouldn't put much thought to what "advanced features" is a reference to, coming from that background. User should read up on Haxe and may well leave attribution of novelty to correct adjectivation, reads less pedantic in many ways.

Or advanced anything else for that matter. Cannese is a really bright programmer though; man built a programming language with an interesting runtime, and manages to use them for his one-man game studio. Not bad.

jdonaldson 14y ago
Nicolas "Cannasse" just left his company, I'm not sure what he's up to next. It should be interesting to see.
- sspiff 14y ago
  Where did you hear/read this?
  - nickmain 14y ago
    http://ncannasse.fr/blog/time_for_new_adventures http://ncannasse.fr/blog/time_for_new_adventures

stewbrew 14y ago

Why does a language have to have advanced whatever features if it does the job, i.e. if it's good enough to write most of a cross-platform app in a maintainable manner while producing efficient code? Note: I am not a haxe user and would be interested in comments of actual users with respect to the compiler's reliability. My personal conception is that it is quite difficult to define a stable language that defines exactly the same on all targets.

joneil 14y ago
I'm a haxe user. What exactly are you wanting to know? If by reliability you are talking about it consistently not breaking between versions, then it's fine. Between versions the compiler does add new features but for the most part backwards compatibility has been kept between major versions. If you're talking about does it consistently produce similar code across platforms, then it depends. Plenty of people are using it for 2D games (targetting flash, Android and iOS) and it seems suitable for this. Outside of that, it basically comes down to this: if you want your code to work cross platform, stick to the standard library or to known cross-platform libraries. As an example, I had a piece of code which took markdown text input, converted it to HTML, and then manipulated the resulting HTML. The code worked on Javascript, Neko and CPP without modifications, because I stuck to existing cross platform libraries.
jdonaldson 14y ago
I think Haxe is unique in the balance it is trying to find between compilation speed, platform consistency/reach, and advanced language features. My personal observation is that Nicolas and the other language authors seem to prioritize things as I've just listed them. Compilation speed thing is a "big deal" that I don't hear talked about a lot on HN. Haxe's compiler is so fast that it provides autocompletions by itself. So, completing fields from "using" mixins, constructor inference, structural types, or macro generated methods are all very fast, and guaranteed to be correct. So, perhaps while Haxe's features are not as robust as a few other languages, they feel much more tightly integrated with most coding workflows.

joneil 14y ago

What sort of advanced features are you hoping for? Genuinely interested, I use Haxe and find it's type system advanced enough for me - but maybe there's awesome features in other languages that I don't know about yet.

novalis 14y ago
User is probably referencing concepts wich are not "advanced" per si, they are simply recent implementations of type concepts, we should keep in mind that these tend to make for not so efficient languages and Haxe is pointed at the other side of that spectrum. User seems to be some sort of Java api aficionado so I wouldn't put much thought to what "advanced features" is a reference to, coming from that background. User should read up on Haxe and may well leave attribution of novelty to correct adjectivation, reads less pedantic in many ways.