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Imba: A new programming language for web apps

imba.io

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Re: Imba: A new programming language for web apps

#11

Post by jarcane »

vertex-four wrote: post #10
mikkom wrote: post #7

As this seems to be some kind of javascript derivate using node.js on the backend (?) I'm interested in how this deals with async operations, ie. can you create functions which take a long time to run without blocking other users? This is especially important as they are targeting server side too.

I'm not reading anything which suggests they're targeting server-side.

This whole website is written in Imba. It uses the same code for server and client. After the initial load, all navigation in the browser is happening with history push/popState, and rendered directly on the client, yet any hard refresh should land you at the same spot when rendered from the server, thanks to using the same logic for routing as well.

http://imba.io/guides#toc-examples-scrimbla

Re: Imba: A new programming language for web apps

#12

Post by judofyr »

mikkom wrote: post #7

As this seems to be some kind of javascript derivate using node.js on the backend (?) I'm interested in how this deals with async operations, ie. can you create functions which take a long time to run without blocking other users? This is especially important as they are targeting server side too.

Imba itself is "just" a language which compiles to JavaScript and can be used both at the client- and the server-side. At the server-side you use the same techniques as in Node.js (callbacks/promises for I/O-bound concurrency; process pools for computational concurrency).

Imba has syntax support for `await` (based on Promises) which helps quite a lot on concurrency-heavy code.

Re: Imba: A new programming language for web apps

#13

Post by randallsquared »

golergka wrote: post #5

To all people who reply negatively to this: don't you guys actually like learning new languages? Why?

I do like learning new languages, but there's a certain amount of fatigue in this particular space, given the pace of announcements and limited time. There's a worry that one could spend all one's available time for learning new things and have learned nothing of value in two years.

For this to be of value, it has to provide at least one of four things:

1. Becoming a widely-adopted system (like node.js)

2. Strong influence on widely-adopted systems (like Elm)

3. Insights that influence one personally (like most any lisp)

4. More fun than alternative things one could be playing with

Re: Imba: A new programming language for web apps

#14

Post by creamyhorror »

I've been following Imba for the past several months since the initial announcement on HN.

I like the clean syntax, tags, and high performance, so I hope you guys attract interest despite all the library/framework fatigue we're experiencing in frontend JS land. It's rather refreshing to be able to write code and view all together, like .css(appropriate_styling)

It would be great if you had some walked-through example apps on webpages (like the old site used to have). That kind of thing helps people better understand the benefits of your approach.

Re: Imba: A new programming language for web apps

#15

Post by diezge »

nailer wrote: post #9
golergka wrote: post #5

To all people who reply negatively to this: don't you guys actually like learning new languages? Why?

I think existing programmers sometimes forget that there's more people who /will/ program than who /do/ program. They have existing biases: towards extra tokens, separation of concerns by separating technologies rather than components, and other newer concepts that they legitimately do find strange. People making programming languages are much better suited by targeting non-programmers: existing devs are often simply…

"People making programming languages are much better suited by targeting non-programmers: existing devs are often simply not their audience."

In this case I'd argue it would be better for non-programmers to learn JavaScript before a language which compiles to it.

Re: Imba: A new programming language for web apps

#19

Post by mikkom »

vertex-four wrote: post #10
mikkom wrote: post #7

As this seems to be some kind of javascript derivate using node.js on the backend (?) I'm interested in how this deals with async operations, ie. can you create functions which take a long time to run without blocking other users? This is especially important as they are targeting server side too.

I'm not reading anything which suggests they're targeting server-side.

from http://imba.io/guides

What is Imba?

Imba is a new programming language for the web that compiles to performant JavaScript. It is heavily inspired by ruby and python, but developed explicitly for web programming (both server and client).

Re: Imba: A new programming language for web apps

#20

Post by nailer »

diezge wrote: post #15
nailer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think existing programmers sometimes forget that there's more people who /will/ program than who /do/ program. They have existing biases: towards extra tokens, separation of concerns by separating technologies rather than components, and other newer concepts that they legitimately do find strange. People making programming languages are much better suited by targeting non-programmers: existing devs are often simply…

"People making programming languages are much better suited by targeting non-programmers: existing devs are often simply not their audience." In this case I'd argue it would be better for non-programmers to learn JavaScript before a language which compiles to it.

I agree with that: these languages often don't have devtools, so they have to look at the compiled output to fix bugs. This makes for an unpleasant learning experinece.

Once these tools fix the DevTools situation they'll be a lot more useful.

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