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I've been using haxe/openfl in production for 1.5 years and wouldn't really recommend it. Originally cross-platform code was a really good idea very few people

I've been using haxe/openfl in production for 1.5 years and wouldn't really recommend it. Originally cross-platform code was a really good idea very few people had or executed well and haxe's warts were forgivable, today that's a capability many languages have without the hassle. I think the only unique value left in Haxe is outputting Flash.

jdonaldson 12y ago
what languages have a platform comparable to OpenFL?
- benologist 12y ago
  I don't think there's a drop-in alternative to the Flash API other than OpenFL, but you can achieve the same outcomes in pretty much any language. If you're just looking for multi-platform stuff, that's almost a minimum requirement now: unity3d, unreal engine, xamarin, javascript etc.
  - jdonaldson 12y ago
    unity/unreal engine isn't really a fair comparison, you're either requiring a web view plugin (unity), or you're going with emscripten (unity/unreal). I couldn't find evidence of solid support for Xamarin there either. Haxe has the ability to integrate much more cleanly across all of these platforms imho.
- WoodenChair 12y ago
  If you mean what languages have a near Flash equivalent API, then Dart has StageXL http://www.stagexl.org http://www.stagexl.org
  - jdonaldson 12y ago
    Hmm, hadn't heard of that one before.
RussianCow 12y ago
I think the value of Haxe comes from being able to use one language across platforms, not anything specific to the language itself. Could you speak to the specific "warts" you found while using it? I'm genuinely curious.
- benologist 12y ago
  My favorite is Array.sort. Since it's consistent with many other languages you won't get to the docs until your app is crashing. Instead of being fixed it's had a recommended alternative buried in the docs for I think years: The sort operation is not guaranteed to be stable, which means that the order of equal elements may not be retained. For a stable Array sorting algorithm, haxe.ds.ArraySort.sort() can be used instead. Every platform has its own gaps in the API. This is evident in this submission - after the author translated his JavaScript he then had to fix his haxe to work within the subset available to C#. OpenFL isn't a mature platform and their releases are rushed and buggy. If you download and install <older OpenFL> their setup process will install the newest version of dependencies and their incomplete documentation will leave you to figure out what versions are actually compatible. Gestures are a pain in the ass with immature and incomplete libraries. The one thing that makes it worth using - barely - is the decade and a half of ActionScript experience I also have.
  - RussianCow 12y ago
    I see. Are there a lot of these warts? To be fair, if all the inconsistencies are documented, that seems like a fairly minor inconvenience for the benefits you get. (I don't know how well-documented they actually are, so maybe the answer is "not".) Also, if I were to use Haxe for mobile development, it wouldn't be through OpenFL; I would use the native APIs of each system and just write a thin wrapper in Haxe that's common for all platforms. I just want to reuse code, not adopt a completely separate UI toolkit.
    - benologist 12y ago
      The success story mentions the dev had to learn OCaml to fix bugs in Haxe, other comments here by jdk and reallyRaoul refer to inconveniences too. Elsassph mentions some of the issues are specific to OpenFL not haxe, that's true both ways. I think you can reasonably expect to encounter issues. Do you expect to encounter any bugs at all - outside your own code - in Java, Objective C etc when you do your native UIs?
elsassph 12y ago
Let's be careful not to limit Haxe to OpenFL, which the linked article isn't even using. The article points out that Haxe is a great option for creating portable application logic while the game is using Unity for rendering. Other uses for Haxe are the JavaScript target which a number of companies are using extensively in the same way you would be using typescript/coffeescript.

jdonaldson 12y ago

what languages have a platform comparable to OpenFL?

benologist 12y ago
I don't think there's a drop-in alternative to the Flash API other than OpenFL, but you can achieve the same outcomes in pretty much any language. If you're just looking for multi-platform stuff, that's almost a minimum requirement now: unity3d, unreal engine, xamarin, javascript etc.
- jdonaldson 12y ago
  unity/unreal engine isn't really a fair comparison, you're either requiring a web view plugin (unity), or you're going with emscripten (unity/unreal). I couldn't find evidence of solid support for Xamarin there either. Haxe has the ability to integrate much more cleanly across all of these platforms imho.
WoodenChair 12y ago
If you mean what languages have a near Flash equivalent API, then Dart has StageXL http://www.stagexl.org http://www.stagexl.org
- jdonaldson 12y ago
  Hmm, hadn't heard of that one before.

RussianCow 12y ago

I think the value of Haxe comes from being able to use one language across platforms, not anything specific to the language itself. Could you speak to the specific "warts" you found while using it? I'm genuinely curious.

benologist 12y ago
My favorite is Array.sort. Since it's consistent with many other languages you won't get to the docs until your app is crashing. Instead of being fixed it's had a recommended alternative buried in the docs for I think years: The sort operation is not guaranteed to be stable, which means that the order of equal elements may not be retained. For a stable Array sorting algorithm, haxe.ds.ArraySort.sort() can be used instead. Every platform has its own gaps in the API. This is evident in this submission - after the author translated his JavaScript he then had to fix his haxe to work within the subset available to C#. OpenFL isn't a mature platform and their releases are rushed and buggy. If you download and install <older OpenFL> their setup process will install the newest version of dependencies and their incomplete documentation will leave you to figure out what versions are actually compatible. Gestures are a pain in the ass with immature and incomplete libraries. The one thing that makes it worth using - barely - is the decade and a half of ActionScript experience I also have.
- RussianCow 12y ago
  I see. Are there a lot of these warts? To be fair, if all the inconsistencies are documented, that seems like a fairly minor inconvenience for the benefits you get. (I don't know how well-documented they actually are, so maybe the answer is "not".) Also, if I were to use Haxe for mobile development, it wouldn't be through OpenFL; I would use the native APIs of each system and just write a thin wrapper in Haxe that's common for all platforms. I just want to reuse code, not adopt a completely separate UI toolkit.
  - benologist 12y ago
    The success story mentions the dev had to learn OCaml to fix bugs in Haxe, other comments here by jdk and reallyRaoul refer to inconveniences too. Elsassph mentions some of the issues are specific to OpenFL not haxe, that's true both ways. I think you can reasonably expect to encounter issues. Do you expect to encounter any bugs at all - outside your own code - in Java, Objective C etc when you do your native UIs?

elsassph 12y ago

Let's be careful not to limit Haxe to OpenFL, which the linked article isn't even using. The article points out that Haxe is a great option for creating portable application logic while the game is using Unity for rendering. Other uses for Haxe are the JavaScript target which a number of companies are using extensively in the same way you would be using typescript/coffeescript.