4 ms·

What would be really nice is something similar to .Net's virtual machine CLR. It would offer the flexibility to design in whatever language you want and possibl

by isaiahg 11y ago

What would be really nice is something similar to .Net's virtual machine CLR. It would offer the flexibility to design in whatever language you want and possibly a performance boost as well.

nerraga 11y ago
That only addresses the language component though, right? You'd still be stuck with HTML and CSS. I'm okay with javascript although I'd love to see another language supported in a similar first class fashion. It's HTML and particularly CSS that feel too overloaded, document-centric, and just plain hacky. I think something a little closer to XAML, or possibly like AML, would be a great addition. It'd be great to have support for a responsive layout without having to deal with responsive design as it exists today (amazing as it is).
Too 11y ago
Java applets and Silverlight were attempts on this idea but both failed quite miserably. Not necessarily because the idea itself was bad, in the Java case the execution was bad and the .net case came in a time where moving away from flash was the latest trend and the fear of proprietary lockin from MS too high.
sparkie 11y ago
The CLR isn't really very flexible. Most languages that run on it are pretty similar. If you try to implement a language like Haskell on top of it for example, it quickly becomes obvious that it isn't a good fit - because the CLR has no support for higher kinds, typeclasses, laziness, parametric polymorphism etc. Sure, you can implement a Haskell interpreter/compiler that converts to .NET, but there certainly won't be any performance boost by boxing everything into objects and having several layers of indirection to simply invoke a function (and not really any advantage over writing such interpreter in say, JS). A more ideal VM would be one which doesn't force a particular paradigm on you, but just abstracts over the CPU, using capabilities to restrict which instructions can be invoked. The CLR lacks such capabilities. Perhaps something like SafeHaskell would be in the right direction, where side-effects are limited, and the user can optionally allow websites to invoke trusted modules.
- jaen 11y ago
  A low-level safe VM? That exists with PNaCl (Portable Native Client), which of course everybody dislikes as a web technology.

by isaiahg 11y ago

What would be really nice is something similar to .Net's virtual machine CLR. It would offer the flexibility to design in whatever language you want and possibly a performance boost as well.

nerraga 11y ago

That only addresses the language component though, right? You'd still be stuck with HTML and CSS. I'm okay with javascript although I'd love to see another language supported in a similar first class fashion. It's HTML and particularly CSS that feel too overloaded, document-centric, and just plain hacky. I think something a little closer to XAML, or possibly like AML, would be a great addition. It'd be great to have support for a responsive layout without having to deal with responsive design as it exists today (amazing as it is).

Too 11y ago

Java applets and Silverlight were attempts on this idea but both failed quite miserably. Not necessarily because the idea itself was bad, in the Java case the execution was bad and the .net case came in a time where moving away from flash was the latest trend and the fear of proprietary lockin from MS too high.

sparkie 11y ago

The CLR isn't really very flexible. Most languages that run on it are pretty similar. If you try to implement a language like Haskell on top of it for example, it quickly becomes obvious that it isn't a good fit - because the CLR has no support for higher kinds, typeclasses, laziness, parametric polymorphism etc. Sure, you can implement a Haskell interpreter/compiler that converts to .NET, but there certainly won't be any performance boost by boxing everything into objects and having several layers of indirection to simply invoke a function (and not really any advantage over writing such interpreter in say, JS). A more ideal VM would be one which doesn't force a particular paradigm on you, but just abstracts over the CPU, using capabilities to restrict which instructions can be invoked. The CLR lacks such capabilities. Perhaps something like SafeHaskell would be in the right direction, where side-effects are limited, and the user can optionally allow websites to invoke trusted modules.

jaen 11y ago
A low-level safe VM? That exists with PNaCl (Portable Native Client), which of course everybody dislikes as a web technology.