5 ms·

"Why push for developers to waste time porting between c++ and java" Yes, using something like C# and Mono would be a huge win.

by CmonDev 12y ago

grey-area 12y ago
What would be really nice would be seeing a language-agnostic device. Based on linux, with the same APIs available to everyone, so that as on desktop linux, a thousand languages can bloom, and everyone can use the development language of their choice (including yet to be invented languages). GUI bindings would be the issue here of course, but it is not insurmountable. It's a shame that the software landscape is so dominated by large corporations, who demand a tithe of our data every time we want to use a device.
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  Great idea! It would make sense to define a high level yet minimalist type system, a large standard library, and a CPU independent bytecode format that many languages and compilers could target. They could then add to that basic type system as they wished whilst still retaining interoperability. We could call the infrastructure that makes this possible ... a virtual machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages
  - grey-area 12y ago
    The JVM is neither independent of a predatory corporation (see recent Sun/Google lawsuit), nor is it easy to interact with an API like the Android one from other languages in an idiomatic way, nor is it great for mobile devices which are really resource constrained (energy and memory).
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    You're saying that we could implement a general purpose operating system inside of our general purpose operating system?
  - kodablah 12y ago
    Scala has dropped Android support and I doubt others are gonna try and maintain it as new JVM instructions come out that we all want to take advantage of but Android will not support.
    - frowaway001 12y ago
      No.
- clarry 12y ago
  I'd like to go a step further and have an OS-agnostic device. Carefully documented with free reference drivers that can be ported to any OS. I don't see why hardware devices should be tied to or somehow "based on" a specific operating system. Can a laptop be just a laptop, not a windows laptop or linux laptop or whatever? And a phone a phone, not a linux phone?
- suy 12y ago
  SailfishOS (Jolla). At this moment is a bit Qt/C++ centric, but I use daily a Python written application (GPodder), and the technology that makes it possible (PyOtherSide) has a Ruby version in early stages. Is a completely normal linux, with the usual tools that you might expect on a linux distro (D-Bus, Bluez, tracker, etc.).

"Why push for developers to waste time porting between c++ and java" Yes, using something like C# and Mono would be a huge win.

by CmonDev 12y ago

"Why push for developers to waste time porting between c++ and java" Yes, using something like C# and Mono would be a huge win.

grey-area 12y ago

What would be really nice would be seeing a language-agnostic device. Based on linux, with the same APIs available to everyone, so that as on desktop linux, a thousand languages can bloom, and everyone can use the development language of their choice (including yet to be invented languages). GUI bindings would be the issue here of course, but it is not insurmountable. It's a shame that the software landscape is so dominated by large corporations, who demand a tithe of our data every time we want to use a device.

mike_hearn 12y ago
Great idea! It would make sense to define a high level yet minimalist type system, a large standard library, and a CPU independent bytecode format that many languages and compilers could target. They could then add to that basic type system as they wished whilst still retaining interoperability. We could call the infrastructure that makes this possible ... a virtual machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages
- grey-area 12y ago
  The JVM is neither independent of a predatory corporation (see recent Sun/Google lawsuit), nor is it easy to interact with an API like the Android one from other languages in an idiomatic way, nor is it great for mobile devices which are really resource constrained (energy and memory).
- pessimizer 12y ago
  You're saying that we could implement a general purpose operating system inside of our general purpose operating system?
- kodablah 12y ago
  Scala has dropped Android support and I doubt others are gonna try and maintain it as new JVM instructions come out that we all want to take advantage of but Android will not support.
  - frowaway001 12y ago
    No.
clarry 12y ago
I'd like to go a step further and have an OS-agnostic device. Carefully documented with free reference drivers that can be ported to any OS. I don't see why hardware devices should be tied to or somehow "based on" a specific operating system. Can a laptop be just a laptop, not a windows laptop or linux laptop or whatever? And a phone a phone, not a linux phone?
suy 12y ago
SailfishOS (Jolla). At this moment is a bit Qt/C++ centric, but I use daily a Python written application (GPodder), and the technology that makes it possible (PyOtherSide) has a Ruby version in early stages. Is a completely normal linux, with the usual tools that you might expect on a linux distro (D-Bus, Bluez, tracker, etc.).