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I watched the presentation in Pycon 2015[1], and I really liked how honest/aware they are about the challenges and tradeoffs (so far, the performance it's prett

by brachi 11y ago

I watched the presentation in Pycon 2015[1], and I really liked how honest/aware they are about the challenges and tradeoffs (so far, the performance it's pretty bad compared to javascript, and the download size is still an issue). At the end is answered why python can't be directly included in Firefox or other browsers(the presenter/main developer works for Mozilla) [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiBfOFqDIAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiBfOFqDIAI

voltagex_ 11y ago
I wonder if Python could be embedded as an addon.
- RussianCow 11y ago
  Of course it could. But that would defeat the point, because support wouldn't be widespread enough for any real use (unless you're just using it for an intranet site or something).
  - romaniv 11y ago
    As usual, everyone devalues the benefits of progressive enhancement. Add-on would be a great way to get the ball rolling, as long as your website works without it too.
    - RussianCow 11y ago
      But we're not talking about some optional feature you can just shim in 1kb of JavaScript, we're talking about the language used to write a web app. Sure, you could use PyPy.js as a fallback, but you'd essentially create a horrible loading experience for >99.99% of your users while you wait for this addon to catch on (which won't happen, because there's no reason for an end-user to install it). For a language like Python to be natively supported on the web, at least one major browser has to support it. And that's not likely to happen given the current state of affairs.
vog 11y ago
> python can't be directly included in Firefox or other browsers So Python is a bad candidate, but there are better candidates out there. For example, jsofocaml (using OCaml in the browser) looks quite promising. In the end, we need a lightweight yet properly defined and highlevel language, and the ML languages as well as the LISP languages are great candidates for that.
- maximilian 11y ago
  Purescript is a Haskell-like language that is designed to output to javascript. It looks quite nice and has seen a lot of attention lately. It's even in GSoC.
  - magmadiver 11y ago
    Also, ClojureScript.
  - arianvanp 11y ago
    plus its semantics lie pretty close to javascript. Most importantly because it's strict instead of lazy. Eventhough its strict it has a very haskelly feel. Both in syntax and type system. Also I think strict semantics is the way to go for efficient Functional Reactive Programming. Furthermore, Purescript's FFI is really nice to use and it's really easy to bind to existing javascript libraries. PureScript is community is nice and active. They are also discussing a lot with the `virtual-dom` guys to bring react/om/mercury-like functionality to purescript [0] and it's quite freakin awesome. Seriously I'd take purescript for javascript any day. I think it's great that we FP folks can finally do frontend dev :-) [0] - https://github.com/slamdata/purescript-halogen https://github.com/slamdata/purescript-halogen
  - akst 11y ago
    Purescript is interesting, I've been trying to build a project in it over the last few months. Since it's still pre 1.0, it has proven difficult but understandably so. It's mostly due to arcane/vague error messages (which they're in the process of dealing with), painfully long compile times, (imo) a few missing features, and incomplete young libraries. On the flip side, with the state of libraries and all, it's provided me with a real incentive to get involved in open source, by having to contribute patches to said libraries and getting actively involved in general discussion. Edit: Just so I don't come off as mostly negative, I do enjoy having purescript as another statically typed option on the client side with close semantics to javascript. It's also been nice having a some kind of parsec like library on the client side (purescript-parsing), which was the main reason I chose purescript for this project in the first place.
nailer 11y ago
> At the end is answered why python can't be directly included in Firefox or other browsers(the presenter/main developer works for Mozilla) Direct link to answer: https://youtu.be/PiBfOFqDIAI?t=1611 https://youtu.be/PiBfOFqDIAI?t=1611
- jdnier 11y ago
  "If we ship Python inside of Firefox, no one is going to use it because it's not available in Chrome, it's not available in Internet Explorer." Oh yeah? Try me.
  - callahad 11y ago
    Well, Google more or less tried the same with Dart and has since abandoned that plan in favor of targeting JS as Dart's primary runtime. Then again, the Dart VM never shipped in mainline Chrome, so who knows how a more committed attempt would have played out.
    - toyg 11y ago
      That's a bit of a fig leaf: dart never had the clout and popularity Python has, and it was clearly something no other browser vendor could get behind. Python has significant cross-vendor mindshare and wouldn't be perceived as fostering anybody's agenda. It's true though that getting even two major browser vendors to agree on supporting another scripting language in addition to JS, is really really hard. I don't see it happening unless Nadella's "Really Good, Honest! (TM)" Microsoft makes some sort of grand gesture towards Google or (more likely) Mozilla.
      - spankalee 11y ago
        Python might have clout, but in many way it's even harder to optimize than JavaScript, whereas Dart was designed by JavaScript VM experts to be easily optimizable and has a very fast, very small VM. Python is also only just starting to explore optional typing which is obviously a prime feature of Dart and JS derivatives like TypeScript.
itsnotlupus 11y ago
For historical context, early IE browsers weren't hardcoded to use JavaScript. We know about VBScript, but really there was a generic framework called Active Scripting that would allow any other language to be plugged in. Python was one of those languages. You could download an ActivePython distribution and start being able to run python in your web page with a <script language="PythonScript"> tag. I'm not sure if this still works in current IE versions. It might.

by brachi 11y ago

voltagex_ 11y ago

I wonder if Python could be embedded as an addon.

RussianCow 11y ago
Of course it could. But that would defeat the point, because support wouldn't be widespread enough for any real use (unless you're just using it for an intranet site or something).
- romaniv 11y ago
  As usual, everyone devalues the benefits of progressive enhancement. Add-on would be a great way to get the ball rolling, as long as your website works without it too.
  - RussianCow 11y ago
    But we're not talking about some optional feature you can just shim in 1kb of JavaScript, we're talking about the language used to write a web app. Sure, you could use PyPy.js as a fallback, but you'd essentially create a horrible loading experience for >99.99% of your users while you wait for this addon to catch on (which won't happen, because there's no reason for an end-user to install it). For a language like Python to be natively supported on the web, at least one major browser has to support it. And that's not likely to happen given the current state of affairs.

vog 11y ago

> python can't be directly included in Firefox or other browsers So Python is a bad candidate, but there are better candidates out there. For example, jsofocaml (using OCaml in the browser) looks quite promising. In the end, we need a lightweight yet properly defined and highlevel language, and the ML languages as well as the LISP languages are great candidates for that.

maximilian 11y ago
Purescript is a Haskell-like language that is designed to output to javascript. It looks quite nice and has seen a lot of attention lately. It's even in GSoC.
- magmadiver 11y ago
  Also, ClojureScript.
- arianvanp 11y ago
  plus its semantics lie pretty close to javascript. Most importantly because it's strict instead of lazy. Eventhough its strict it has a very haskelly feel. Both in syntax and type system. Also I think strict semantics is the way to go for efficient Functional Reactive Programming. Furthermore, Purescript's FFI is really nice to use and it's really easy to bind to existing javascript libraries. PureScript is community is nice and active. They are also discussing a lot with the `virtual-dom` guys to bring react/om/mercury-like functionality to purescript [0] and it's quite freakin awesome. Seriously I'd take purescript for javascript any day. I think it's great that we FP folks can finally do frontend dev :-) [0] - https://github.com/slamdata/purescript-halogen https://github.com/slamdata/purescript-halogen
- akst 11y ago
  Purescript is interesting, I've been trying to build a project in it over the last few months. Since it's still pre 1.0, it has proven difficult but understandably so. It's mostly due to arcane/vague error messages (which they're in the process of dealing with), painfully long compile times, (imo) a few missing features, and incomplete young libraries. On the flip side, with the state of libraries and all, it's provided me with a real incentive to get involved in open source, by having to contribute patches to said libraries and getting actively involved in general discussion. Edit: Just so I don't come off as mostly negative, I do enjoy having purescript as another statically typed option on the client side with close semantics to javascript. It's also been nice having a some kind of parsec like library on the client side (purescript-parsing), which was the main reason I chose purescript for this project in the first place.

nailer 11y ago

> At the end is answered why python can't be directly included in Firefox or other browsers(the presenter/main developer works for Mozilla) Direct link to answer: https://youtu.be/PiBfOFqDIAI?t=1611 https://youtu.be/PiBfOFqDIAI?t=1611

jdnier 11y ago
"If we ship Python inside of Firefox, no one is going to use it because it's not available in Chrome, it's not available in Internet Explorer." Oh yeah? Try me.
- callahad 11y ago
  Well, Google more or less tried the same with Dart and has since abandoned that plan in favor of targeting JS as Dart's primary runtime. Then again, the Dart VM never shipped in mainline Chrome, so who knows how a more committed attempt would have played out.
  - toyg 11y ago
    That's a bit of a fig leaf: dart never had the clout and popularity Python has, and it was clearly something no other browser vendor could get behind. Python has significant cross-vendor mindshare and wouldn't be perceived as fostering anybody's agenda. It's true though that getting even two major browser vendors to agree on supporting another scripting language in addition to JS, is really really hard. I don't see it happening unless Nadella's "Really Good, Honest! (TM)" Microsoft makes some sort of grand gesture towards Google or (more likely) Mozilla.
    - spankalee 11y ago
      Python might have clout, but in many way it's even harder to optimize than JavaScript, whereas Dart was designed by JavaScript VM experts to be easily optimizable and has a very fast, very small VM. Python is also only just starting to explore optional typing which is obviously a prime feature of Dart and JS derivatives like TypeScript.

itsnotlupus 11y ago

For historical context, early IE browsers weren't hardcoded to use JavaScript. We know about VBScript, but really there was a generic framework called Active Scripting that would allow any other language to be plugged in. Python was one of those languages. You could download an ActivePython distribution and start being able to run python in your web page with a <script language="PythonScript"> tag. I'm not sure if this still works in current IE versions. It might.