11 ms·

GNOME project picks JavaScript as "first class" dev language

146 points by iProject 14y ago

tikhonj 14y ago
Well, it's an answer to the paradox of choice. Also, JavaScript is not a bad language for UI development at all. It certainly has its warts, but I liked it more than the other frameworks I've done UIs in: Java Swing, Perl/Python Tk or Haskell WX. Admittedly, I really liked the FRP logic part with Haskell, but actually using wxWidgets was pretty poor. Also, JavaScript has some very compelling FRP libraries itself which could probably be adapted to work on Gnome.
- damian2000 14y ago
  FRP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_reactive_programming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_reactive_programming
- camus 14y ago
  Well,I wish we had ES4 instead, which would have been even better but thanks to Microsoft,Yahoo and Mozilla betrayal this will never happen. The irony is when Microsoft comes up with Typescript because they now think javascript is not good enough. Eventually Javascript will look like Python.
  - psionski 14y ago
    ...and Microsoft already had WPF... Isn't everything else VERY primitive compared to it? Why would they go back to an inferior technology? Adoption issue?
    - camus 14y ago
      Microsoft had JScript.NET even before C#, so this was purely a political move not a technical one. At that time , investing on javascript would not have made Windows sell more. Now Javascript is seen as a way for MS to get more apps on their RT plateform thus sell more Windows licenses. However , i dont believe MS javascript move is a long term one.
  - mnutt 14y ago
    Wasn't Mozilla the one pushing for ES4?
    - camus 14y ago
      hi, actually it was Adobe, they worked with mozilla on tamarin a es4 vm.
  - tracker1 14y ago
    Take a look at CoffeeScript if you want python-like style..
    - zem 14y ago
      or livescript if you want haskell-like style [http://gkz.github.com/LiveScript/ http://gkz.github.com/LiveScript/] it's a coffeescript descendant rather than a haskell->js compiler, but it has a very pleasing haskell/ml surface.
CJefferson 14y ago
While that is the title of theregister's piece, it is not true. The bindings of no other language are being removed, the GNOME project has just decided what answer they should give to the question "What should I write my new app in", and to try to get one language's documentation up to really high standards.
- zapdrive 14y ago
  Yea, the title is misleading, as down there in the article they clearly say that JavaScript will just be given priority, and work on other languages will continue.
reidrac 14y ago
Further info: http://treitter.livejournal.com/14871.html http://treitter.livejournal.com/14871.html In fact I recommend reading the comments. EDIT: ah, I didn't notice the reg linked to the blog post (I got distracted by the inaccurate title). Well, that's the source anyway and my recommendation stands. Kudos to Travis Reitter for replying to the comments.
sandGorgon 14y ago
Does anyone know what happened to Vala[1] and why it was not picked ? It seems to have a huge amount of traction[2] and generates compiled code (which seems to me as performant than Javascript) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_%28programming_language%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_%28programming_language%29 [2] https://live.gnome.org/Vala/Documentation#Projects_Developed_in_Vala https://live.gnome.org/Vala/Documentation#Projects_Developed...
- jitl 14y ago
  Mostly because Vala is a GNOME-only language with no external support or buy-in. It'd be rather insular of GNOME to say "if you want to write apps, then learn our new, GNOME-only language."
  - sandGorgon 14y ago
    Vala is modeled after C#, which probably is (empirically) the most popular desktop app development language. genuinely curious : In general, do we see a lot of desktop app developers coming from the web world on Linux ? I'm pretty sure that is not the case in the Windows world. In fact, more often than not I have seen die hard fanatics ("interpreted languages sucks for desktop apps!!" vs "C++ sucks") on both sides unwilling to cross over.
    - riquito 14y ago
      "the most popular desktop app development language" on MS Windows only, where GNOME doesn't run
      - sandGorgon 14y ago
        its the most popular desktop app dev language period - by sheer numbers. I see these people as the target market for Linux, especially with the closed marketplace of Windows 8 RT. I am not sure these developers would come onboard with knowledge of javascript - so the biggest advantage (ubiquity) is nullified. I am not sure which developers is Gnome targeting by choosing javascript. At this point in the evolution of OSes, its all about the app marketplace.
kybernetyk 14y ago
I think they (GNOME) would like to 'lure' more web-centered developers to their platform so that's why they chose JS. But there's a fault in their thinking IMHO. Web guys are web guys for one reason: They sincerely believe web is the future and better than native desktop software. (For some values of better.) And then there's the other big group: The native desktop devs who don't think JavaScript is a good choice for a native platform as there's already a big eco system of C/C++ code supporting this platform and why make the extra work of creating JS bindings? (I'm one of these guys - though I don't develop for GNOME.) So all the GNOME guys do with this decision is to alienate their existing developer base while not really attracting any new devs to their platform. Personally I think Vala was/is a perfect language for their platform. It's sad they they gave up on that.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Web guys are web guys for one reason: They sincerely believe web is the future and better than native desktop software. Maybe; how does that fit in with PhoneGap?
  - psionski 14y ago
    PhoneGap is about marketing, not about software. For customers it's difficult to find a specific website, but it's easier to find an app in the app store. The devs are still web guys, but thought they will sell more if it looks like a "real app".
    - zapdrive 14y ago
      I disagree. I used PhoneGap to develop my cloud-storage app so that I don't have to develop the App for 4 different platforms (iOS, Android, Windows, BlackBerry). I believe most devs use PhoneGap to develop real apps, not just to pack their existing websites into native apps.
      - psionski 14y ago
        This makes sense, thank you for the insight :) Wouldn't it have worked as a normal website? Does PhoneGap offer access to native APIs that are not available from web?
millstone 14y ago
What is the most sophisticated GNOME app written in JavaScript thus far? Honest question.
- quarterto 14y ago
  Large parts of GNOME Shell are written in GJS using GIR hooks to LibMutter and Clutter.
  - PommeDeTerre 14y ago
    Given that GNOME Shell is one of the most criticized and outright hated pieces of open source software, it isn't a very comforting example.
    - adam-a 14y ago
      Most criticism centres on the design, not the technical aspects, I think it's fair to say. It's an example of a fairly large, complex, and smooth application written in Javascript for the Gnome platform. I am looking forward to more apps using JS to see how well it all works in practice though. More docs and support will help this I hope.
      - correnos 14y ago
        I think that the language is not necessarily so disconnected from the design as you say. Language influences thought, and can thus have a large effect on how people solve problems (ex. When's the last time you used a lightweight, snappy feeling Java app?). If Javascript leads people to designs like the GNOME shell, I'd much rather it be kept out of GNOME's toolkit.
        PommeDeTerre 14y ago
        Very true. I think it's also important to consider not only how JavaScript may influence developers while they create software, but also what its voluntary use says about the developers' experience, knowledge and judgment. It's one thing to use JavaScript when you're doing client-side web development, where it's basically the only option, even if it's dressed up as CoffeeScript or TypeScript. But it makes absolutely no sense to voluntarily use it when C, C++, Python and even C# and Vala are available. Doing so would be a significant show of very bad judgment, in my opinion. If you need performance or power, using C or C++ makes perfect sense. If minimizing development time and effort is important, then Python will work extremely well. Vala and C# generally fix somewhere in between. So there's absolutely no place or need for JavaScript, which is inferior in every respect. No intelligent developer should ever feel the need to choose it when developing GNOME applications, given the much superior alternatives. Anyone who does want to use it probably shouldn't be contributing to a project like GNOME in the first place.
buster 14y ago
I don't know if i really like that approach. I'd much rather prefer Python or even C/C++. There are already so many desktop bindings for Python, why going through the hazzle to support all this in javascript? The documentation will be poor, many libraries will be missing, the learning curve will be high in the beginning. My guess is that the Gnome team wants to take advantage of the amount of Javascript capable developers. But seriously, will many of those website/html/css/js developers write a desktop app where the overall community spirit is to replace apps with websites?
- matthiasv 14y ago
  You are probably not aware of the GObject Introspection mechanism that is available for quite some time now. Any compliant GObject-based library can be used by any language that supports GI through an intermediate representation of the classes, interfaces etc. So, you don't need to write any bindings, neither for Python, JS, Java, Go or whatever.
  - buster 14y ago
    Question is if there is a GObject based library for everything a developer likes to do?
    - chris_wot 14y ago
      Give me a list of everything that a developer likes to do, and I'll try to answer this.
      - buster 14y ago
        Ok, let me put it this way: What do you estimate is bigger? The amount of plain C libraries or the amount of GObject based libraries? Where would you put the amount of available perl/python/ruby modules? (The amount of C libraries not in GObject is my answer to your question ;) )
        14y ago
msie 14y ago
Doing some work in Mono/C# and it rocks. That would make a way better choice than JavaScript.
- petercooper 14y ago
  It's been a long time since I looked into GNOME dev but that was the main choice for the last 10 years or so, wasn't it?
  - ebassi 14y ago
    no, it wasn't - mostly because of political bullcrap coming from the "I'm purer than thou" crowd. obviously, the biased perception that gnome was using C# exclusively was also due to the same crowd. this also led to the C#/mono platform lagging behind, so that these days writing gnome apps in C# means using deprecated libraries, which is unfortunate.
    - petercooper 14y ago
      Ah right, maybe that's where I got the impression. I used to follow Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza's work in the early/mid 2000s and picked up a 'C# is the future of GNOME' vibe.
antihero 14y ago
This is absolutely laughable. If you make an API, you make it language agnostic. I can understand if they are recommending it, but I'm not sure lowering the barrier to entry so low that you're going to have an absolute tonne of horrendously written, likely insecure apps, is all that good.
- maheart 14y ago
  The GNOME APIs are language agnostic. They're a fantastic example of language agnotism. Anything written with the Glib library or libraries that have Glib bindings for them, can be accessed from any language that is GObjectIntrospection-able: currently this is Javascript and Python, but there might be more. >> lowering the barrier to entry so low that you're going to have an absolute tonne of horrendously written, likely insecure apps, is all that good. I disagree. One of the most common questions about opensource projects is "where do I start contributing?", and the FOSS community admits that the initial contribution barrier is high. Horrendously written apps I can live with: I just won't use them. Regarding insecurity, I'd much rather an insecure desktop app than an insecure web app (that might be accessible to the world).
  - shawn-butler 14y ago
    RE: bindings other than javascript/python [0]. I have used the Go binding. [0] https://live.gnome.org/GObjectIntrospection/Users https://live.gnome.org/GObjectIntrospection/Users
- stephen_g 14y ago
  The APIs are written in C, and have bindings to most languages. Recommending is all they are doing here (the title is quite inaccurate)
  - _Simon 14y ago
    Describing the title as "quite inaccurate" is very generous. "deliberately inflammatory in order to generate page views" is much closer to the mark given that the article came from the register.
pre 14y ago
Sole? > "We will continue to write documentation for other languages" I think you mean 'primary'. Everyone who loves C or Python or whatever will continue to be able to use C or Python or whatever.
ilaksh 14y ago
That is a misrepresentation. They are just going to recommend JavaScript if people ask which to use and focus on supporting that. Not forcing people to drop other languages. My question is, what about people that like JavaScript derivatives like CoffeeScript or LiveScript?
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I guess they just compile them to JS as they would for the web. On github I have seen a few gnome3 mods written in coffeescript.
chris_wot 14y ago
I'd like to see LibreOffice rewritten entirely in JavaScript.
- maheart 14y ago
  Hard to tell, but I'm guessing this is sarcasm. This would definitely be possible. When GNOME say "Javascript", they actually mean Javascript + GObjectIntrospection + any C libraries that are written with Glib or libraries that have Glib bindings for them. Javascript will end up calling C code.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Not at all. I'm quite serious. I'm actually interested to see if this could be done. But this is very interesting :-) Can you point to any documentation? Edit: the issue with porting LibreOffice to Javascript is the sheer size of the codebase. I don't suppose anyone has a block diagram anywhere of OpenOffice/LibreOffice that divides it into modules? I mean, how do you tackle such a massive codebase? It looks like Michael Meeks has a good idea about this, but the biggest problem with the codebase is that there isn't any high level, quality documentation that shows how it works. Also... and this is probably just me, but I can't even find the entry-point to the code. That's always been my issue with these apps, but that just shows my exceeding lack of ability in C++ coding I suspect.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Closest it probably google docs.
- diggan 14y ago
  Checkout Google Drive (former Google Docs).
AnthonBerg 14y ago
I'm sorry, but the intuition-less "practical" decisions of GNOME of late only make me think this now: Q: What do GNOME developers really want? A: Who cares?
- chris_wot 14y ago
  If you were a comedian, I'd heckle.
  - AnthonBerg 14y ago
    I'd understand.
estavaro 14y ago
It's an OK choice. I'd rather they picked Dart instead. Dart has a better OO support and a cleaned up core language. But it's early days for Dart still. Dart has a VM by the same folks who created the JavaScript V8 Engine and they say that they expect Dart to be faster than JavaScript in a number of ways. Part because Dart's code is less dynamic than JavaScript's. Part because loading Dart files could use a pre-parsed file. You can work on documenting Dart code by adding types to the APIs as it's optionally typed. Dart on the browser gets translated into JavaScript for deployment making the issue of not having a Dart VM everywhere less important. One of the niceties of Dart is that before deploying, code gets reduced by removing unused code with a tree-shaking algorithm based on Dart's less dynamic features. class Dart extends JavaScript { var points; Dart(this.points = 10); } That's a sample Dart class with default constructor parameter.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
StudyAnimal 14y ago
Oh man! I just learned Guile!
josteink 14y ago
They say Javascript is good because it's self-contained with no core library, which is fair enough. I'm curious what engine they've decided on using though. As far as I can see, that has not been mentioned. Anyone got any intel?
- adam-a 14y ago
  Spidermonkey I think. https://live.gnome.org/Gjs https://live.gnome.org/Gjs
mariusmg 14y ago
And thus the road to irrelevancy begins....
xutopia 14y ago
I don't understand why all the hate. Javascript is the fastest growing language right now and there is no sign of slowing down. My question is why would they pick another language over this one?
- keeperofdakeys 14y ago
  Javascript became the language of the web because it was there, and people adapted. While it may be secured in the web, I think it's a mistake to pick such a, for lack of a better term, horrible language for programming on the desktop. As a language, javascript feels less complete when compared to other languages (like python). The weak-typing is especially bad, leading to inconsistent results. More time/effort is then required to write a good application, which I think is unacceptable.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Javascript has the advantage that most of the millions of web devs out there have used it or a language that compiles to it at some point. By comparison python is a relatively niche language. It also has the advantage of allowing web devs to port their web code over easily to a desktop app.
    - PommeDeTerre 14y ago
      It's best to keep those kind of developers isolated to the web, and away from important, widely-used software projects like GNOME. I think a lot of the problems with GNOME 3 were due to web developers and designers getting involved, bringing in some dumb philosophies, and making decisions that were quite terrible. Things were much better when it was C programmers doing the bulk of GNOME's design and implementation.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        A lot of web developers are working on things that are more widely used than gnome. This seems roughly equivalent to saying "This platform should only have applications written by neckbeards for neckbeards" I think if this brings programmers who would not traditionally target Linux desktop to target gnome that is a good thing. if their apps suck it should be straightforward to avoid them.
urlwolf 14y ago
I'm using gnome shell and I love it. I moved to it from awesomewm, so that gives you an idea of the type of user that I am. They made some bold moves on UX, and I was surprised I was agreeing with them. There's a tiling wm extension, shellshape, that has advantages over awesome (!). I'm happy with the move. This is just to say that gnome is not targeting grandmas and teenager with their redesign. If you were used to gnome 2 desktop (which I hated) give 3 a serious try.
apaprocki 14y ago
Back in 2005 at Bloomberg we decided to move all Terminal app development to server-side JS, using a homegrown system built on top of a custom GObject (GObjectIntrospection didn't exist at the time, so we made our own) and SpiderMonkey. IIRC, GNOME was starting to experiment with JS around the same time. JS isn't for everyone, but it certainly makes app development faster than writing apps in C/C++.
moron4hire 14y ago
>>> Today, Reitter says that question has “about 8 different personal-preference answers”. That's not helpful because “... it drives people away from our platform. Having to potentially evaluate several different languages and their stacks gives potential developers a lot of unneeded extra work.” That makes absolutely no sense. You aren't going to evaluate GNOME as a C developer and thinking about whether or not you're going to use the Python bindings--you're going to use the C bindings. This is just garbage.
jimmaswell 14y ago
I thought when you were making a desktop application for linux distros it wasn't supposed to only work on one DM. Why would you have to specifically think about gnome when you're making one?
- wmf 14y ago
  If you're writing an app that uses GNOME libraries you'll probably be thinking about those libraries quite a lot.
hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
Problem: too much choices. Solution: let's introduce one more choice, and a crappy one while at that.
correnos 14y ago
Fitting that the article should end with the "best tool for the job" defense. This argument seems to be used almost monotonically to justify poor language and design choices. This move is bad for the GNOME project as it has the potential to knock the quality of new GNOME apps down to the quality of the average web app. They're robbing themselves of the benefits of native development and, due to their GNOME-specific APIs, not even getting portability in return.
Andrex 14y ago
I don't think I've seen a more inaccurate headline stay on HN for so long. JS isn't the sole app dev language and it won't ever be. It's the language they chose to prioritize resources for tooling, documentation, and evangelizing of the platform to new developers. A better, more thoughtful explanation is at the developer's blog, which I hope the OP link is replaced with: http://treitter.livejournal.com/14871.html http://treitter.livejournal.com/14871.html

146 points by iProject 14y ago

Well, it's an answer to the paradox of choice. Also, JavaScript is not a bad language for UI development at all. It certainly has its warts, but I liked it more than the other frameworks I've done UIs in: Java Swing, Perl/Python Tk or Haskell WX. Admittedly, I really liked the FRP logic part with Haskell, but actually using wxWidgets was pretty poor. Also, JavaScript has some very compelling FRP libraries itself which could probably be adapted to work on Gnome.

damian2000 14y ago
FRP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_reactive_programming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_reactive_programming
camus 14y ago
Well,I wish we had ES4 instead, which would have been even better but thanks to Microsoft,Yahoo and Mozilla betrayal this will never happen. The irony is when Microsoft comes up with Typescript because they now think javascript is not good enough. Eventually Javascript will look like Python.
- psionski 14y ago
  ...and Microsoft already had WPF... Isn't everything else VERY primitive compared to it? Why would they go back to an inferior technology? Adoption issue?
  - camus 14y ago
    Microsoft had JScript.NET even before C#, so this was purely a political move not a technical one. At that time , investing on javascript would not have made Windows sell more. Now Javascript is seen as a way for MS to get more apps on their RT plateform thus sell more Windows licenses. However , i dont believe MS javascript move is a long term one.
- mnutt 14y ago
  Wasn't Mozilla the one pushing for ES4?
  - camus 14y ago
    hi, actually it was Adobe, they worked with mozilla on tamarin a es4 vm.
- tracker1 14y ago
  Take a look at CoffeeScript if you want python-like style..
  - zem 14y ago
    or livescript if you want haskell-like style [http://gkz.github.com/LiveScript/ http://gkz.github.com/LiveScript/] it's a coffeescript descendant rather than a haskell->js compiler, but it has a very pleasing haskell/ml surface.

CJefferson 14y ago

While that is the title of theregister's piece, it is not true. The bindings of no other language are being removed, the GNOME project has just decided what answer they should give to the question "What should I write my new app in", and to try to get one language's documentation up to really high standards.

zapdrive 14y ago
Yea, the title is misleading, as down there in the article they clearly say that JavaScript will just be given priority, and work on other languages will continue.

reidrac 14y ago

Further info: http://treitter.livejournal.com/14871.html http://treitter.livejournal.com/14871.html In fact I recommend reading the comments. EDIT: ah, I didn't notice the reg linked to the blog post (I got distracted by the inaccurate title). Well, that's the source anyway and my recommendation stands. Kudos to Travis Reitter for replying to the comments.

sandGorgon 14y ago

Does anyone know what happened to Vala[1] and why it was not picked ? It seems to have a huge amount of traction[2] and generates compiled code (which seems to me as performant than Javascript) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_%28programming_language%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_%28programming_language%29 [2] https://live.gnome.org/Vala/Documentation#Projects_Developed_in_Vala https://live.gnome.org/Vala/Documentation#Projects_Developed...

jitl 14y ago
Mostly because Vala is a GNOME-only language with no external support or buy-in. It'd be rather insular of GNOME to say "if you want to write apps, then learn our new, GNOME-only language."
- sandGorgon 14y ago
  Vala is modeled after C#, which probably is (empirically) the most popular desktop app development language. genuinely curious : In general, do we see a lot of desktop app developers coming from the web world on Linux ? I'm pretty sure that is not the case in the Windows world. In fact, more often than not I have seen die hard fanatics ("interpreted languages sucks for desktop apps!!" vs "C++ sucks") on both sides unwilling to cross over.
  - riquito 14y ago
    "the most popular desktop app development language" on MS Windows only, where GNOME doesn't run
    - sandGorgon 14y ago
      its the most popular desktop app dev language period - by sheer numbers. I see these people as the target market for Linux, especially with the closed marketplace of Windows 8 RT. I am not sure these developers would come onboard with knowledge of javascript - so the biggest advantage (ubiquity) is nullified. I am not sure which developers is Gnome targeting by choosing javascript. At this point in the evolution of OSes, its all about the app marketplace.

kybernetyk 14y ago

I think they (GNOME) would like to 'lure' more web-centered developers to their platform so that's why they chose JS. But there's a fault in their thinking IMHO. Web guys are web guys for one reason: They sincerely believe web is the future and better than native desktop software. (For some values of better.) And then there's the other big group: The native desktop devs who don't think JavaScript is a good choice for a native platform as there's already a big eco system of C/C++ code supporting this platform and why make the extra work of creating JS bindings? (I'm one of these guys - though I don't develop for GNOME.) So all the GNOME guys do with this decision is to alienate their existing developer base while not really attracting any new devs to their platform. Personally I think Vala was/is a perfect language for their platform. It's sad they they gave up on that.

icebraining 14y ago
Web guys are web guys for one reason: They sincerely believe web is the future and better than native desktop software. Maybe; how does that fit in with PhoneGap?
- psionski 14y ago
  PhoneGap is about marketing, not about software. For customers it's difficult to find a specific website, but it's easier to find an app in the app store. The devs are still web guys, but thought they will sell more if it looks like a "real app".
  - zapdrive 14y ago
    I disagree. I used PhoneGap to develop my cloud-storage app so that I don't have to develop the App for 4 different platforms (iOS, Android, Windows, BlackBerry). I believe most devs use PhoneGap to develop real apps, not just to pack their existing websites into native apps.
    - psionski 14y ago
      This makes sense, thank you for the insight :) Wouldn't it have worked as a normal website? Does PhoneGap offer access to native APIs that are not available from web?

millstone 14y ago

What is the most sophisticated GNOME app written in JavaScript thus far? Honest question.

quarterto 14y ago
Large parts of GNOME Shell are written in GJS using GIR hooks to LibMutter and Clutter.
- PommeDeTerre 14y ago
  Given that GNOME Shell is one of the most criticized and outright hated pieces of open source software, it isn't a very comforting example.
  - adam-a 14y ago
    Most criticism centres on the design, not the technical aspects, I think it's fair to say. It's an example of a fairly large, complex, and smooth application written in Javascript for the Gnome platform. I am looking forward to more apps using JS to see how well it all works in practice though. More docs and support will help this I hope.
    - correnos 14y ago
      I think that the language is not necessarily so disconnected from the design as you say. Language influences thought, and can thus have a large effect on how people solve problems (ex. When's the last time you used a lightweight, snappy feeling Java app?). If Javascript leads people to designs like the GNOME shell, I'd much rather it be kept out of GNOME's toolkit.
      - PommeDeTerre 14y ago
        Very true. I think it's also important to consider not only how JavaScript may influence developers while they create software, but also what its voluntary use says about the developers' experience, knowledge and judgment. It's one thing to use JavaScript when you're doing client-side web development, where it's basically the only option, even if it's dressed up as CoffeeScript or TypeScript. But it makes absolutely no sense to voluntarily use it when C, C++, Python and even C# and Vala are available. Doing so would be a significant show of very bad judgment, in my opinion. If you need performance or power, using C or C++ makes perfect sense. If minimizing development time and effort is important, then Python will work extremely well. Vala and C# generally fix somewhere in between. So there's absolutely no place or need for JavaScript, which is inferior in every respect. No intelligent developer should ever feel the need to choose it when developing GNOME applications, given the much superior alternatives. Anyone who does want to use it probably shouldn't be contributing to a project like GNOME in the first place.

buster 14y ago

I don't know if i really like that approach. I'd much rather prefer Python or even C/C++. There are already so many desktop bindings for Python, why going through the hazzle to support all this in javascript? The documentation will be poor, many libraries will be missing, the learning curve will be high in the beginning. My guess is that the Gnome team wants to take advantage of the amount of Javascript capable developers. But seriously, will many of those website/html/css/js developers write a desktop app where the overall community spirit is to replace apps with websites?

matthiasv 14y ago
You are probably not aware of the GObject Introspection mechanism that is available for quite some time now. Any compliant GObject-based library can be used by any language that supports GI through an intermediate representation of the classes, interfaces etc. So, you don't need to write any bindings, neither for Python, JS, Java, Go or whatever.
- buster 14y ago
  Question is if there is a GObject based library for everything a developer likes to do?
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Give me a list of everything that a developer likes to do, and I'll try to answer this.
    - buster 14y ago
      Ok, let me put it this way: What do you estimate is bigger? The amount of plain C libraries or the amount of GObject based libraries? Where would you put the amount of available perl/python/ruby modules? (The amount of C libraries not in GObject is my answer to your question ;) )
      - 14y ago

msie 14y ago

Doing some work in Mono/C# and it rocks. That would make a way better choice than JavaScript.

petercooper 14y ago
It's been a long time since I looked into GNOME dev but that was the main choice for the last 10 years or so, wasn't it?
- ebassi 14y ago
  no, it wasn't - mostly because of political bullcrap coming from the "I'm purer than thou" crowd. obviously, the biased perception that gnome was using C# exclusively was also due to the same crowd. this also led to the C#/mono platform lagging behind, so that these days writing gnome apps in C# means using deprecated libraries, which is unfortunate.
  - petercooper 14y ago
    Ah right, maybe that's where I got the impression. I used to follow Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza's work in the early/mid 2000s and picked up a 'C# is the future of GNOME' vibe.

antihero 14y ago

This is absolutely laughable. If you make an API, you make it language agnostic. I can understand if they are recommending it, but I'm not sure lowering the barrier to entry so low that you're going to have an absolute tonne of horrendously written, likely insecure apps, is all that good.

maheart 14y ago
The GNOME APIs are language agnostic. They're a fantastic example of language agnotism. Anything written with the Glib library or libraries that have Glib bindings for them, can be accessed from any language that is GObjectIntrospection-able: currently this is Javascript and Python, but there might be more. >> lowering the barrier to entry so low that you're going to have an absolute tonne of horrendously written, likely insecure apps, is all that good. I disagree. One of the most common questions about opensource projects is "where do I start contributing?", and the FOSS community admits that the initial contribution barrier is high. Horrendously written apps I can live with: I just won't use them. Regarding insecurity, I'd much rather an insecure desktop app than an insecure web app (that might be accessible to the world).
- shawn-butler 14y ago
  RE: bindings other than javascript/python [0]. I have used the Go binding. [0] https://live.gnome.org/GObjectIntrospection/Users https://live.gnome.org/GObjectIntrospection/Users
stephen_g 14y ago
The APIs are written in C, and have bindings to most languages. Recommending is all they are doing here (the title is quite inaccurate)
- _Simon 14y ago
  Describing the title as "quite inaccurate" is very generous. "deliberately inflammatory in order to generate page views" is much closer to the mark given that the article came from the register.

pre 14y ago

Sole? > "We will continue to write documentation for other languages" I think you mean 'primary'. Everyone who loves C or Python or whatever will continue to be able to use C or Python or whatever.

ilaksh 14y ago

That is a misrepresentation. They are just going to recommend JavaScript if people ask which to use and focus on supporting that. Not forcing people to drop other languages. My question is, what about people that like JavaScript derivatives like CoffeeScript or LiveScript?

jiggy2011 14y ago
I guess they just compile them to JS as they would for the web. On github I have seen a few gnome3 mods written in coffeescript.

chris_wot 14y ago

I'd like to see LibreOffice rewritten entirely in JavaScript.

maheart 14y ago
Hard to tell, but I'm guessing this is sarcasm. This would definitely be possible. When GNOME say "Javascript", they actually mean Javascript + GObjectIntrospection + any C libraries that are written with Glib or libraries that have Glib bindings for them. Javascript will end up calling C code.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  Not at all. I'm quite serious. I'm actually interested to see if this could be done. But this is very interesting :-) Can you point to any documentation? Edit: the issue with porting LibreOffice to Javascript is the sheer size of the codebase. I don't suppose anyone has a block diagram anywhere of OpenOffice/LibreOffice that divides it into modules? I mean, how do you tackle such a massive codebase? It looks like Michael Meeks has a good idea about this, but the biggest problem with the codebase is that there isn't any high level, quality documentation that shows how it works. Also... and this is probably just me, but I can't even find the entry-point to the code. That's always been my issue with these apps, but that just shows my exceeding lack of ability in C++ coding I suspect.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Closest it probably google docs.
diggan 14y ago
Checkout Google Drive (former Google Docs).

AnthonBerg 14y ago

I'm sorry, but the intuition-less "practical" decisions of GNOME of late only make me think this now: Q: What do GNOME developers really want? A: Who cares?

chris_wot 14y ago
If you were a comedian, I'd heckle.
- AnthonBerg 14y ago
  I'd understand.

estavaro 14y ago

It's an OK choice. I'd rather they picked Dart instead. Dart has a better OO support and a cleaned up core language. But it's early days for Dart still. Dart has a VM by the same folks who created the JavaScript V8 Engine and they say that they expect Dart to be faster than JavaScript in a number of ways. Part because Dart's code is less dynamic than JavaScript's. Part because loading Dart files could use a pre-parsed file. You can work on documenting Dart code by adding types to the APIs as it's optionally typed. Dart on the browser gets translated into JavaScript for deployment making the issue of not having a Dart VM everywhere less important. One of the niceties of Dart is that before deploying, code gets reduced by removing unused code with a tree-shaking algorithm based on Dart's less dynamic features. class Dart extends JavaScript { var points; Dart(this.points = 10); } That's a sample Dart class with default constructor parameter.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

StudyAnimal 14y ago

Oh man! I just learned Guile!

josteink 14y ago

They say Javascript is good because it's self-contained with no core library, which is fair enough. I'm curious what engine they've decided on using though. As far as I can see, that has not been mentioned. Anyone got any intel?

adam-a 14y ago
Spidermonkey I think. https://live.gnome.org/Gjs https://live.gnome.org/Gjs

mariusmg 14y ago

And thus the road to irrelevancy begins....

xutopia 14y ago

I don't understand why all the hate. Javascript is the fastest growing language right now and there is no sign of slowing down. My question is why would they pick another language over this one?

keeperofdakeys 14y ago
Javascript became the language of the web because it was there, and people adapted. While it may be secured in the web, I think it's a mistake to pick such a, for lack of a better term, horrible language for programming on the desktop. As a language, javascript feels less complete when compared to other languages (like python). The weak-typing is especially bad, leading to inconsistent results. More time/effort is then required to write a good application, which I think is unacceptable.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Javascript has the advantage that most of the millions of web devs out there have used it or a language that compiles to it at some point. By comparison python is a relatively niche language. It also has the advantage of allowing web devs to port their web code over easily to a desktop app.
  - PommeDeTerre 14y ago
    It's best to keep those kind of developers isolated to the web, and away from important, widely-used software projects like GNOME. I think a lot of the problems with GNOME 3 were due to web developers and designers getting involved, bringing in some dumb philosophies, and making decisions that were quite terrible. Things were much better when it was C programmers doing the bulk of GNOME's design and implementation.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      A lot of web developers are working on things that are more widely used than gnome. This seems roughly equivalent to saying "This platform should only have applications written by neckbeards for neckbeards" I think if this brings programmers who would not traditionally target Linux desktop to target gnome that is a good thing. if their apps suck it should be straightforward to avoid them.

urlwolf 14y ago

I'm using gnome shell and I love it. I moved to it from awesomewm, so that gives you an idea of the type of user that I am. They made some bold moves on UX, and I was surprised I was agreeing with them. There's a tiling wm extension, shellshape, that has advantages over awesome (!). I'm happy with the move. This is just to say that gnome is not targeting grandmas and teenager with their redesign. If you were used to gnome 2 desktop (which I hated) give 3 a serious try.

apaprocki 14y ago

Back in 2005 at Bloomberg we decided to move all Terminal app development to server-side JS, using a homegrown system built on top of a custom GObject (GObjectIntrospection didn't exist at the time, so we made our own) and SpiderMonkey. IIRC, GNOME was starting to experiment with JS around the same time. JS isn't for everyone, but it certainly makes app development faster than writing apps in C/C++.

moron4hire 14y ago

>>> Today, Reitter says that question has “about 8 different personal-preference answers”. That's not helpful because “... it drives people away from our platform. Having to potentially evaluate several different languages and their stacks gives potential developers a lot of unneeded extra work.” That makes absolutely no sense. You aren't going to evaluate GNOME as a C developer and thinking about whether or not you're going to use the Python bindings--you're going to use the C bindings. This is just garbage.

jimmaswell 14y ago

I thought when you were making a desktop application for linux distros it wasn't supposed to only work on one DM. Why would you have to specifically think about gnome when you're making one?

wmf 14y ago
If you're writing an app that uses GNOME libraries you'll probably be thinking about those libraries quite a lot.

hcarvalhoalves 14y ago

Problem: too much choices. Solution: let's introduce one more choice, and a crappy one while at that.

correnos 14y ago

Fitting that the article should end with the "best tool for the job" defense. This argument seems to be used almost monotonically to justify poor language and design choices. This move is bad for the GNOME project as it has the potential to knock the quality of new GNOME apps down to the quality of the average web app. They're robbing themselves of the benefits of native development and, due to their GNOME-specific APIs, not even getting portability in return.

Andrex 14y ago

I don't think I've seen a more inaccurate headline stay on HN for so long. JS isn't the sole app dev language and it won't ever be. It's the language they chose to prioritize resources for tooling, documentation, and evangelizing of the platform to new developers. A better, more thoughtful explanation is at the developer's blog, which I hope the OP link is replaced with: http://treitter.livejournal.com/14871.html http://treitter.livejournal.com/14871.html