6 ms·

GNU ease.js

52 points by conductor 13y ago

news_to_me 13y ago
Why? Javascript isn't class based. Why not embrace the paradigm of the language you're using?
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  ES6 adds minimal JS classes, which I'm a fan of. They're just syntactic sugar over: Animal = function () {}; Dog = function () {}; Dog.prototype = Object.create(Animal); But this? This is an abomination.
  - kybernetikos 13y ago
    that's Object.create(Animal.prototype), and they do add a little more, like a working 'super', and getting the .constructor property right.
tylermauthe 13y ago
Curious about performance overhead... Not seeing the benefits of this over something like Resig's Simple Class Inheritance?
- mikegerwitz 13y ago
  See the test cases in test/perf; they can be run with `make check` (or `make test`).
greyskull 13y ago
I'm fairly new to JS, and I started watching the Crockford on Javascript videos. He really presented prototypical inheritance and using JS as it was "meant to be"(?) well, as opposed to trying to shove in classical inheritance. Even with my limited knowledge, ease.js doesn't seem to be a good way to use JS...
- SDGT 13y ago
  This is to be taken with a grain of salt, as I don't really view myself as that great of a developer (iOS, Android, PHP, Postgres, and all things frontend) but ease.js makes js even more weird. People already have a hard enough time dealing with a pseudo functional async language. Trying to lay formal OOP concepts on top of JS is an abstraction for which I cannot find an analogy. I think the project is incredibly cool though, as I've always found "meta" programming like this to be fascinating, but this causes a somewhat serious problem: When someone needs to go into a formal JS framework, take angular for example, they really need to unlearn all of the other JS tendencies that were absorbed over time. Switching from jQuery thinking to Angular thinking is hard enough, but going from ease.js to Angular is a horrifying thought. In every context that you would find JS (Web dev and game dev in Unity come to mind), it will look and perform absolutely NOTHING like this.
brianbarker 13y ago
GNU says, "us, too!" Yet another JS framework.
pearjuice 13y ago
With thousand and one problems in the GNU software ecosystem one wonders what they are doing in a completely unknown terrain releasing such a redundant and unnecessary JavaScript library.
- simlevesque 13y ago
  Their motive is clear, they wanted a free javascript framework.
  - art0rz 13y ago
    But it's not a framework. It's a framework as much as jQuery is. Why not use TypeScript? It offers similar features, without the extra overhead and ugly syntax.
    - tracker1 13y ago
      Because... err... umn... Micro$oft is the devil! Seriously though, I don't care much for typescript either... I'm okay with CoffeeScript as it brings as much to the table without having to type twice as much to get it. This just seems like a sick joke foisted on people who are too lazy to learn a slightly different paradigm.
smrtinsert 13y ago
Please no more of these. They have the worst impact on javascript "ides". Most barely understand prototypes, and once you use class abstractions like this or ExtJS they simply are useless unless they have specific integration with it. It's not feasible to ask of tool writers to work with every class emulating library out there, and its a constant drag on having anywhere near useful javascript tooling.
tippytop 13y ago
Gross. It's also GPLv3, that seems a bit restrictive for a class system.
- guy_montag 13y ago
  Yeah, Gross! GPLv3 is so restrictive – I hate free software licenses, it gives you too much freedom.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Well, frequently components intended to be used so broadly, and which become more valuable with more users (because more people speak the language) get weaker licenses. There are pros and cons to this from most perspectives, but it's a (weak) surprise.
  - jdiez17 13y ago
    You do realise that GPLv3 grants the user less freedoms than a license like MIT, right?
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      No, the GPLv3 grants the user more freedoms than a license like MIT - they can demand the source from someone who has provided them the binary. It grants potential distributors fewer freedoms - they must provide sources and cannot distribute under incompatible licenses.
      - jdiez17 13y ago
        When I said "user" I meant "developer". Most of my open source code is licensed under the MIT license because it grants developers more freedoms than a GPL-like license would. Also, I believe that by allowing distributors to use your code without forcing them to release their code you don't restrict potential users' freedoms - if a company wanted to use your library in their project and your license is not compatible with it they will just find another project or write a similar one themselves. The result for the user is the same: they will not get access to the code.
simlevesque 13y ago
With a name like that I thought it was yet another easing plugin but this... this is something else. I have a hard time thinking of an application for myself. It's not something I would want to learn and I would not work on a project which uses it.
antihero 13y ago
I'm not sure what this really adds, and as it's GPLv3 why anyone serious would use it for anything. Ok, looking through...holy hell it's ugly. I've never really felt the need to use public/protected in JS, and it looks inspired by PHP. Bolting this stuff on on top of JS, in such a broken feeling way...I just can't see why anyone would use this at all.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - vertex-four 13y ago
    You definitely do distribute the HTML, CSS, Javascript, and content, by sending it to the browser, for any reasonable definition of distribute. What you don't distribute is any server-side code.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "as it's GPLv3 why anyone serious would use it for anything" Serious people never set out to produce GPLv3 works? I totally grant the "this doesn't look like it's actually useful", though, although I've not been neck deep in JS for ages.
- mantrax3 13y ago
  > "and it looks inspired by PHP." You're getting the order wrong here. - It was inspired by Java. - PHP OOP was also inspired by Java. It's hard to argue that Java's OOP model is bad. It encourages clear code structure and works especially well for large project (for tiny projects you don't need OOP at all, anyway). This is why C#, PHP, this library and many more are based on Java. Oh, BTW, let's keep digging: - Java's OOP was inspired by Objective C. - Objective C was inspired by SmallTalk. It's always Lisp or SmallTalk, isn't that fun?
jonahx 13y ago
To summarize: Let's take the one thing the js actually does well, rip it out because it's too hard and "alien," and replace it with a verbose Java-inspired syntax.
bsimpson 13y ago
If you want a shitty Java reimplementation wrapped in arcane syntax to prevent a JS parser from choking on it, check out this library.
- polemic 13y ago
  And top it off with the most misleading name you could think of!
- smrtinsert 13y ago
  that you think its java like shows that you dont understand the library or java or both.
  - TheZenPsycho 13y ago
    what language do you think it's like?
sssbc 13y ago
Thanks for this - looks like its well thought out and executed.
stygiansonic 13y ago
Learning a language is about more than just the syntax, it's also about learning the idiomatic way to program in the language. This framework appears to hide the true prototype nature of JavaScript by bolting on a class-based structure, going against the language features the designers already gave JavaScript for things like inheritance. Admittedly, JavaScript has suffered from a lack of strong idiomatic principles. (But that has improved in recent years with things projects like CommonJS, RequireJS and Browserify) While I admire the effort that went into a project like this, I can't help but wonder whether it will delay a developer's understanding of JavaScript rather than ease the transition into it.
- tracker1 13y ago
  I have to agree... I didn't even get that far and think to myself, this is horribly ugly... Not to mention much of the sugar is buried in strings. You'd be better off going with TypeScript or CoffeeScript that at least have similar support, with linters/tools in place. This seems like a hack waiting for a large broken codebase.
- ThinkBeat 13y ago
  Well...... The next version of JavaScript will have you know class. .. So I guess the javascript designers are going against the nature of JavaScript by bolting on a class-based structure going against the language features the designers already gave JavaScript for things like inheritance.
  - Touche 13y ago
    ES6 classes are just syntatic sugar for the way people already build constructor/prototype objects.
  - stygiansonic 13y ago
    Good point. However, if this was a shim for some future language feature it would probably be a good idea. It doesn't appear to be and if it was widely used, would only add to the confusion once language support for classes did emerge. Furthermore it appears to put variable name declarations within strings, which might further confuse editors/IDEs that already have trouble with the dynamic nature of the language. I really don't mean to belittle as I'm sure a lot of effort was put into this project. It may serve a purpose somewhere and someone may find it beneficial. I just feel that it goes against the language constructs a little bit too much.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dzuc 13y ago
The author's paper on this: http://mikegerwitz.com/papers/coope/coope.pdf http://mikegerwitz.com/papers/coope/coope.pdf
astral303 13y ago
Why would you introduce that distinction into what is an inherently dynamic language? "virtual" keyword in C++ is an option to avoid paying the cost for a polymorphic call (so it can be inlined at compile time and/or no extra pointer dereference is done). It's a compromise to allow incremental cost of language features--but in JavaScript?
- mantrax3 13y ago
  That's probably the one part that really didn't make sense. But maybe he did it for sport.
- mikegerwitz 13y ago
  There are certain optimizations that I am able to perform by knowing if a function is virtual or not---this is especially important in the Trait implementation. However, the original intent is based on compelling rationale from C#. I cannot find the original article where the article explains the rationale, but aside from optimization benefits and self-documenting code, he makes the point that virtual methods are essentially callbacks/hooks into existing code; you therefore need to put careful thought into how to handle those virtual methods properly and expose the proper APIs.
chrismonsanto 13y ago
I'd like to remind everyone that some GNU labeled projects are not financially supported or commissioned by GNU. They are instead supported by individuals who, for whatever reason, identify with the GNU label and have decided to donate their work to the cause. The comments on this post are super negative, and I think that is because people really don't like the GNU project. We don't even know if the author of this library is the person who submitted it to HN. I would be a nervous wreck if I woke up one day to find my personal work submitted to this site, and have it trashed as thoroughly as it has been here. You don't have to like it or use it for your next project, but for the love of God, don't call it a shitty ugly abomination (to combine some of the comments here...)
- abimaelmartell 13y ago
  The comments are super negative because it's a useless and ugly library, most of these things can be done with vanilla javascript. I love the GNU project, but this thing is ugly.
  - chrismonsanto 13y ago
    Well, so be it. I think the comments here are unnecessarily mean. YMMV. I didn't want to call anyone in particular, or I would have been more specific about what I thought was wrong with the criticism posted here. You can criticize the technical aspects and applicability of the library without being insulting. > ... it's a useless and ugly library, most of these things can be done with vanilla javascript. ... but this thing is ugly. Your criticism is that "most of these things can be done with vanilla JavaScript." Great. What is the point of the rest of your message? Keep in mind what you have written here is fairly tame compared to things that others have said in this topic. When people complain about how hostile "Show HN" topics are, keep this topic and its replies in mind. Can't we be nice? EDIT: This work was written by one developer, in what I am guessing is his free time. This would be different if it was a large project backed by a group of people/company. We might as well have selected a project at random from GitHub. I hope all of your work is up to snuff, lest someone submit it and beat it into a pulp on the front page of (probably) the most popular/influential tech aggregator in the world.
varkson 13y ago
God why is it so ugly. If they made it into a language that compiles into JS, it might be good, but why this?
mavdi 13y ago
Another desperate attempt to turn Javascript into something that it's not meant to be.
mantrax3 13y ago
And a bunch of people coming out of their caves to tell us how JavaScript's quickly cobbled up hacky prototype system is a design by God himself, and everything else is the Devil trying to trick us into his Java ways... Sigh. Which is why the next versions of JS (ES6 and ES7) will have: 1) Modules (namespaces) 2) Classes 3) Member visibility Whoops. Ignore the cognitive dissonance and continue with the flame! Now. While the library linked here isn't the prettiest thing I've seen, I immediately get it. And I can immediately start coding in it and get the expected behavior. This, in itself, is a huge feature compared to the awkward incantations one has to do in barebones JS to do OOP (of any kind). Even the fact it's string based doesn't make it inferior to some of the other unreadable stuff I've seen by people doing JavaScript "properly" (or so they think). So, I say kudos about that. Here we have an implementation solving a practical problem in a practical way. No plot twists and surprises. I prefer TypeScript, but this one doesn't require a parser, so it has its benefits.
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  I assume this message is aimed at me. I'm not worried about ES6. ES6 classes are just syntactic sugar over prototypes, so it'll still confuse the FUCK out of java, c#, c++ and flash developers, because they are still SEMANTICALLY weird and confusing to people used to classical inheritence. So I'm happy about that. As long as Java developers are unhappy with something, I likes it. The awkward incantations you speak of are indeed awkward, I will admit. I mean, how fucking confusing is Object.create({ your prototype here }); am I right? This is much better: MySpecialFramework.extend({ my prototy.. .*ahem* class here! })
  - mantrax3 13y ago
    > "it'll still confuse the FUCK out of java, c#, c++ and flash developers, because they are still SEMANTICALLY weird and confusing to people used to classical inheritence... So I'm happy about that. As long as Java developers are unhappy with something, I likes it." You have issues bro.
krapp 13y ago
It it even possible to enforce 'access modifiers' and 'constants' in any real way in javascript? Is this much more than syntactic sugar or is it useful (despite it's... aesthetic issues?)
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  that's been possible for years. Pull your understanding of what javascript is out of 2005.
mikegerwitz 13y ago
(I am the author of GNU ease.js.) Wow, quite the negative response here. That said, this is something I was wholly expecting from the JavaScript community, so I am not swayed; I'm merely providing something that I found to be useful in the hope that it is useful to others. So thank you to those who recognized that. I feel that many of the negative statements here could have been addressed if the posters had taken the time to understand why the project exists: http://www.gnu.org/software/easejs/manual/About.html The framework exists for those who wish to have the benefits of Classical OOP using JavaScript without the need for a compiler; it provides a standalone library for something many frameworks currently do, but do so incompletely: their own class systems. If there is a feature of ease.js that you do not like, you are not forced to use it; it simply generates prototypes. Language and paradigm flamewars will always exist, but let's be respectful of those who want to "program into" their language (as Steve McConnell put it). Note that GNU ease.js was created when Harmony was just barely getting off the ground, and it is still not released. Even after it is released, there will still be users who do not have the newest features. Part of the reason for GNU ease.js is to address the issue of consistency across all browsers. It works in IE 5.5 (although that wasn't intentional)---you don't have to worry about whether or not ES6 is supported. ES6 also doesn't address some concepts ease.js does. http://www.gnu.org/software/easejs/manual/Implementation-Details.html Let me be clear---I have a strong understanding of the prototypal model, and it does have its uses and elegance. For those who want some of the features of GNU ease.js without the framework itself, I provided both the above link and this paper which demonstrates how OOP is generally done in ECMAScript (and its problems): http://mikegerwitz.com/docs/coope.html GNU ease.js encapsulates those hacks. There's value in that alone. To answer some of the Harmony-related questions: here is a reply to a question I received from another GNU hacker: http://www.gnu.org/software/easejs/misc/easejs-harmony-reply.txt With regards to the licensing: RMS asked if I'd be willing relicense under the GPLv3+, because of their campaign against proprietary JavaScript. Let me be clear on this matter as well: I am an avid free software activist. I hope that people will find GNU ease.js to be useful, but only if they are writing free software. http://www.gnu.org/software/easejs/whyfreejs.html Thank you, conductor, for posting the project---I appreciate input from the community regardless of its tone.
gibbitz 13y ago
Wow. Could someone explain why Coffee script doesn't trigger this much negativity? Is it because it doesn't look like java? From where I sit it is the same idea and all of the flame here applies to it too. Just wanna keep the haters honest. I like how immediate and simple JavaScript is. I started my career with it 15 years ago and I'm not who these metalanguages and frameworks are tar getting, but it's becoming clear that as a JavaScript developer I'm going to have to learn these because those who prefer other languages are using these "adapter pattern" techniques on applications that I will inevitably have to maintain or fix. In that respect, I can certainly see how this trend can breed negativity.

GNU ease.js

52 points by conductor 13y ago

news_to_me 13y ago

Why? Javascript isn't class based. Why not embrace the paradigm of the language you're using?

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
ES6 adds minimal JS classes, which I'm a fan of. They're just syntactic sugar over: Animal = function () {}; Dog = function () {}; Dog.prototype = Object.create(Animal); But this? This is an abomination.
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  that's Object.create(Animal.prototype), and they do add a little more, like a working 'super', and getting the .constructor property right.

tylermauthe 13y ago

Curious about performance overhead... Not seeing the benefits of this over something like Resig's Simple Class Inheritance?

mikegerwitz 13y ago
See the test cases in test/perf; they can be run with `make check` (or `make test`).

greyskull 13y ago

I'm fairly new to JS, and I started watching the Crockford on Javascript videos. He really presented prototypical inheritance and using JS as it was "meant to be"(?) well, as opposed to trying to shove in classical inheritance. Even with my limited knowledge, ease.js doesn't seem to be a good way to use JS...

SDGT 13y ago
This is to be taken with a grain of salt, as I don't really view myself as that great of a developer (iOS, Android, PHP, Postgres, and all things frontend) but ease.js makes js even more weird. People already have a hard enough time dealing with a pseudo functional async language. Trying to lay formal OOP concepts on top of JS is an abstraction for which I cannot find an analogy. I think the project is incredibly cool though, as I've always found "meta" programming like this to be fascinating, but this causes a somewhat serious problem: When someone needs to go into a formal JS framework, take angular for example, they really need to unlearn all of the other JS tendencies that were absorbed over time. Switching from jQuery thinking to Angular thinking is hard enough, but going from ease.js to Angular is a horrifying thought. In every context that you would find JS (Web dev and game dev in Unity come to mind), it will look and perform absolutely NOTHING like this.

brianbarker 13y ago

GNU says, "us, too!" Yet another JS framework.

pearjuice 13y ago

With thousand and one problems in the GNU software ecosystem one wonders what they are doing in a completely unknown terrain releasing such a redundant and unnecessary JavaScript library.

simlevesque 13y ago
Their motive is clear, they wanted a free javascript framework.
- art0rz 13y ago
  But it's not a framework. It's a framework as much as jQuery is. Why not use TypeScript? It offers similar features, without the extra overhead and ugly syntax.
  - tracker1 13y ago
    Because... err... umn... Micro$oft is the devil! Seriously though, I don't care much for typescript either... I'm okay with CoffeeScript as it brings as much to the table without having to type twice as much to get it. This just seems like a sick joke foisted on people who are too lazy to learn a slightly different paradigm.

smrtinsert 13y ago

Please no more of these. They have the worst impact on javascript "ides". Most barely understand prototypes, and once you use class abstractions like this or ExtJS they simply are useless unless they have specific integration with it. It's not feasible to ask of tool writers to work with every class emulating library out there, and its a constant drag on having anywhere near useful javascript tooling.

tippytop 13y ago

Gross. It's also GPLv3, that seems a bit restrictive for a class system.

guy_montag 13y ago
Yeah, Gross! GPLv3 is so restrictive – I hate free software licenses, it gives you too much freedom.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Well, frequently components intended to be used so broadly, and which become more valuable with more users (because more people speak the language) get weaker licenses. There are pros and cons to this from most perspectives, but it's a (weak) surprise.
- jdiez17 13y ago
  You do realise that GPLv3 grants the user less freedoms than a license like MIT, right?
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    No, the GPLv3 grants the user more freedoms than a license like MIT - they can demand the source from someone who has provided them the binary. It grants potential distributors fewer freedoms - they must provide sources and cannot distribute under incompatible licenses.
    - jdiez17 13y ago
      When I said "user" I meant "developer". Most of my open source code is licensed under the MIT license because it grants developers more freedoms than a GPL-like license would. Also, I believe that by allowing distributors to use your code without forcing them to release their code you don't restrict potential users' freedoms - if a company wanted to use your library in their project and your license is not compatible with it they will just find another project or write a similar one themselves. The result for the user is the same: they will not get access to the code.

simlevesque 13y ago

With a name like that I thought it was yet another easing plugin but this... this is something else. I have a hard time thinking of an application for myself. It's not something I would want to learn and I would not work on a project which uses it.

antihero 13y ago

I'm not sure what this really adds, and as it's GPLv3 why anyone serious would use it for anything. Ok, looking through...holy hell it's ugly. I've never really felt the need to use public/protected in JS, and it looks inspired by PHP. Bolting this stuff on on top of JS, in such a broken feeling way...I just can't see why anyone would use this at all.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- vertex-four 13y ago
  You definitely do distribute the HTML, CSS, Javascript, and content, by sending it to the browser, for any reasonable definition of distribute. What you don't distribute is any server-side code.
dllthomas 13y ago
"as it's GPLv3 why anyone serious would use it for anything" Serious people never set out to produce GPLv3 works? I totally grant the "this doesn't look like it's actually useful", though, although I've not been neck deep in JS for ages.
mantrax3 13y ago
> "and it looks inspired by PHP." You're getting the order wrong here. - It was inspired by Java. - PHP OOP was also inspired by Java. It's hard to argue that Java's OOP model is bad. It encourages clear code structure and works especially well for large project (for tiny projects you don't need OOP at all, anyway). This is why C#, PHP, this library and many more are based on Java. Oh, BTW, let's keep digging: - Java's OOP was inspired by Objective C. - Objective C was inspired by SmallTalk. It's always Lisp or SmallTalk, isn't that fun?

jonahx 13y ago

To summarize: Let's take the one thing the js actually does well, rip it out because it's too hard and "alien," and replace it with a verbose Java-inspired syntax.

bsimpson 13y ago

If you want a shitty Java reimplementation wrapped in arcane syntax to prevent a JS parser from choking on it, check out this library.

polemic 13y ago
And top it off with the most misleading name you could think of!
smrtinsert 13y ago
that you think its java like shows that you dont understand the library or java or both.
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  what language do you think it's like?

sssbc 13y ago

Thanks for this - looks like its well thought out and executed.

stygiansonic 13y ago

Learning a language is about more than just the syntax, it's also about learning the idiomatic way to program in the language. This framework appears to hide the true prototype nature of JavaScript by bolting on a class-based structure, going against the language features the designers already gave JavaScript for things like inheritance. Admittedly, JavaScript has suffered from a lack of strong idiomatic principles. (But that has improved in recent years with things projects like CommonJS, RequireJS and Browserify) While I admire the effort that went into a project like this, I can't help but wonder whether it will delay a developer's understanding of JavaScript rather than ease the transition into it.

tracker1 13y ago
I have to agree... I didn't even get that far and think to myself, this is horribly ugly... Not to mention much of the sugar is buried in strings. You'd be better off going with TypeScript or CoffeeScript that at least have similar support, with linters/tools in place. This seems like a hack waiting for a large broken codebase.
ThinkBeat 13y ago
Well...... The next version of JavaScript will have you know class. .. So I guess the javascript designers are going against the nature of JavaScript by bolting on a class-based structure going against the language features the designers already gave JavaScript for things like inheritance.
- Touche 13y ago
  ES6 classes are just syntatic sugar for the way people already build constructor/prototype objects.
- stygiansonic 13y ago
  Good point. However, if this was a shim for some future language feature it would probably be a good idea. It doesn't appear to be and if it was widely used, would only add to the confusion once language support for classes did emerge. Furthermore it appears to put variable name declarations within strings, which might further confuse editors/IDEs that already have trouble with the dynamic nature of the language. I really don't mean to belittle as I'm sure a lot of effort was put into this project. It may serve a purpose somewhere and someone may find it beneficial. I just feel that it goes against the language constructs a little bit too much.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dzuc 13y ago

The author's paper on this: http://mikegerwitz.com/papers/coope/coope.pdf http://mikegerwitz.com/papers/coope/coope.pdf

astral303 13y ago

Why would you introduce that distinction into what is an inherently dynamic language? "virtual" keyword in C++ is an option to avoid paying the cost for a polymorphic call (so it can be inlined at compile time and/or no extra pointer dereference is done). It's a compromise to allow incremental cost of language features--but in JavaScript?

mantrax3 13y ago
That's probably the one part that really didn't make sense. But maybe he did it for sport.
mikegerwitz 13y ago
There are certain optimizations that I am able to perform by knowing if a function is virtual or not---this is especially important in the Trait implementation. However, the original intent is based on compelling rationale from C#. I cannot find the original article where the article explains the rationale, but aside from optimization benefits and self-documenting code, he makes the point that virtual methods are essentially callbacks/hooks into existing code; you therefore need to put careful thought into how to handle those virtual methods properly and expose the proper APIs.

chrismonsanto 13y ago

I'd like to remind everyone that some GNU labeled projects are not financially supported or commissioned by GNU. They are instead supported by individuals who, for whatever reason, identify with the GNU label and have decided to donate their work to the cause. The comments on this post are super negative, and I think that is because people really don't like the GNU project. We don't even know if the author of this library is the person who submitted it to HN. I would be a nervous wreck if I woke up one day to find my personal work submitted to this site, and have it trashed as thoroughly as it has been here. You don't have to like it or use it for your next project, but for the love of God, don't call it a shitty ugly abomination (to combine some of the comments here...)

abimaelmartell 13y ago
The comments are super negative because it's a useless and ugly library, most of these things can be done with vanilla javascript. I love the GNU project, but this thing is ugly.
- chrismonsanto 13y ago
  Well, so be it. I think the comments here are unnecessarily mean. YMMV. I didn't want to call anyone in particular, or I would have been more specific about what I thought was wrong with the criticism posted here. You can criticize the technical aspects and applicability of the library without being insulting. > ... it's a useless and ugly library, most of these things can be done with vanilla javascript. ... but this thing is ugly. Your criticism is that "most of these things can be done with vanilla JavaScript." Great. What is the point of the rest of your message? Keep in mind what you have written here is fairly tame compared to things that others have said in this topic. When people complain about how hostile "Show HN" topics are, keep this topic and its replies in mind. Can't we be nice? EDIT: This work was written by one developer, in what I am guessing is his free time. This would be different if it was a large project backed by a group of people/company. We might as well have selected a project at random from GitHub. I hope all of your work is up to snuff, lest someone submit it and beat it into a pulp on the front page of (probably) the most popular/influential tech aggregator in the world.

varkson 13y ago

God why is it so ugly. If they made it into a language that compiles into JS, it might be good, but why this?

mavdi 13y ago

Another desperate attempt to turn Javascript into something that it's not meant to be.

mantrax3 13y ago

And a bunch of people coming out of their caves to tell us how JavaScript's quickly cobbled up hacky prototype system is a design by God himself, and everything else is the Devil trying to trick us into his Java ways... Sigh. Which is why the next versions of JS (ES6 and ES7) will have: 1) Modules (namespaces) 2) Classes 3) Member visibility Whoops. Ignore the cognitive dissonance and continue with the flame! Now. While the library linked here isn't the prettiest thing I've seen, I immediately get it. And I can immediately start coding in it and get the expected behavior. This, in itself, is a huge feature compared to the awkward incantations one has to do in barebones JS to do OOP (of any kind). Even the fact it's string based doesn't make it inferior to some of the other unreadable stuff I've seen by people doing JavaScript "properly" (or so they think). So, I say kudos about that. Here we have an implementation solving a practical problem in a practical way. No plot twists and surprises. I prefer TypeScript, but this one doesn't require a parser, so it has its benefits.

TheZenPsycho 13y ago
I assume this message is aimed at me. I'm not worried about ES6. ES6 classes are just syntactic sugar over prototypes, so it'll still confuse the FUCK out of java, c#, c++ and flash developers, because they are still SEMANTICALLY weird and confusing to people used to classical inheritence. So I'm happy about that. As long as Java developers are unhappy with something, I likes it. The awkward incantations you speak of are indeed awkward, I will admit. I mean, how fucking confusing is Object.create({ your prototype here }); am I right? This is much better: MySpecialFramework.extend({ my prototy.. .*ahem* class here! })
- mantrax3 13y ago
  > "it'll still confuse the FUCK out of java, c#, c++ and flash developers, because they are still SEMANTICALLY weird and confusing to people used to classical inheritence... So I'm happy about that. As long as Java developers are unhappy with something, I likes it." You have issues bro.

krapp 13y ago

It it even possible to enforce 'access modifiers' and 'constants' in any real way in javascript? Is this much more than syntactic sugar or is it useful (despite it's... aesthetic issues?)

TheZenPsycho 13y ago
that's been possible for years. Pull your understanding of what javascript is out of 2005.

mikegerwitz 13y ago

(I am the author of GNU ease.js.) Wow, quite the negative response here. That said, this is something I was wholly expecting from the JavaScript community, so I am not swayed; I'm merely providing something that I found to be useful in the hope that it is useful to others. So thank you to those who recognized that. I feel that many of the negative statements here could have been addressed if the posters had taken the time to understand why the project exists: http://www.gnu.org/software/easejs/manual/About.html The framework exists for those who wish to have the benefits of Classical OOP using JavaScript without the need for a compiler; it provides a standalone library for something many frameworks currently do, but do so incompletely: their own class systems. If there is a feature of ease.js that you do not like, you are not forced to use it; it simply generates prototypes. Language and paradigm flamewars will always exist, but let's be respectful of those who want to "program into" their language (as Steve McConnell put it). Note that GNU ease.js was created when Harmony was just barely getting off the ground, and it is still not released. Even after it is released, there will still be users who do not have the newest features. Part of the reason for GNU ease.js is to address the issue of consistency across all browsers. It works in IE 5.5 (although that wasn't intentional)---you don't have to worry about whether or not ES6 is supported. ES6 also doesn't address some concepts ease.js does. http://www.gnu.org/software/easejs/manual/Implementation-Details.html Let me be clear---I have a strong understanding of the prototypal model, and it does have its uses and elegance. For those who want some of the features of GNU ease.js without the framework itself, I provided both the above link and this paper which demonstrates how OOP is generally done in ECMAScript (and its problems): http://mikegerwitz.com/docs/coope.html GNU ease.js encapsulates those hacks. There's value in that alone. To answer some of the Harmony-related questions: here is a reply to a question I received from another GNU hacker: http://www.gnu.org/software/easejs/misc/easejs-harmony-reply.txt With regards to the licensing: RMS asked if I'd be willing relicense under the GPLv3+, because of their campaign against proprietary JavaScript. Let me be clear on this matter as well: I am an avid free software activist. I hope that people will find GNU ease.js to be useful, but only if they are writing free software. http://www.gnu.org/software/easejs/whyfreejs.html Thank you, conductor, for posting the project---I appreciate input from the community regardless of its tone.

gibbitz 13y ago

Wow. Could someone explain why Coffee script doesn't trigger this much negativity? Is it because it doesn't look like java? From where I sit it is the same idea and all of the flame here applies to it too. Just wanna keep the haters honest. I like how immediate and simple JavaScript is. I started my career with it 15 years ago and I'm not who these metalanguages and frameworks are tar getting, but it's becoming clear that as a JavaScript developer I'm going to have to learn these because those who prefer other languages are using these "adapter pattern" techniques on applications that I will inevitably have to maintain or fix. In that respect, I can certainly see how this trend can breed negativity.