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Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

marcuswest.in

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Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#31

Post by Keyframe »

asnyder wrote: post #27
Keyframe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your answers. If you don't mind me asking, how is that model working for you? It's not that I am cheap of anything like that, but somehow I am put off by that model in a web framework. Maybe it's due to an abundance of pretty good free ones out there, since I'd never be put off by any other middleware that is not web oriented. Weird, I know.

That's a good question, one that we'll be answering in a detailed blog post later in the summer. In short, there is push back from many that would like a free and open-source product, but there's also acceptance from many seasoned developers and development shops that understand that a tool with NOLOH's feature set takes a significant amount of time and money to develop, test, and support. The truth of the matter is…

I'm always surprised by those that will hem and haw over something that's not open-source.

I'm the first one that initially doesn't care if the tool is right. It's just something weird about web middlewares. Maybe we got spoiled by the abundance of good free solutions. I'd never reason about game engine middleware for example.

You've put in a lot of hard work and I hope it pays you off. Good luck!

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#32

Post by marcuswestin »

asnyder wrote: post #24
marcuswestin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun is MIT licensed :) http://github.com/marcuswestin/fun/commit/05870f3f54fda43090...

We feel that NOLOH is significantly advanced to warrant a small fee for commercial purposes. As you can see from my previous post we offer several free license options, including free licenses for open-source projects. Fortunately/Unfortunately (depending on your viewpoint), we live in a capitalistic society and need to recoup some of the costs associated with our team's development over the past six years. Furthermo…

That's awesome! Sorry, didn't mean to sound cheesy. Yeah, I find most shops commercially licensing open source software get pinched into an almost apologetic position. Seems completely counter productive and unfair to me.

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#33

Post by sshumaker_2 »

Actually, there's a lot more to it than simple 'key/value' binding, depending on how it's implemented. It allows you to build very live pages that are driven directly off your data model. Normally, websites build dynamic content using a templating system on the backend, but live updates need to be done in a horribly awkward manner using a Javascript builder syntax or manually gluing together things in JS. This avoids this problem and unifies it into one nice syntax.

I built a similar language like this powered a site of mine that was actually in production (well, Alpha) - and it was a huge productivity boost, resulting in far more interactive pages. (The site never got out of alpha, and never had designer love, so it's stale, but you can see it at http://www.magnifeast.com - try entering a los angeles address).

The downsides to this approach are compatibility (most libraries won't work out of the box), SEO, and performance problems for generating large pages (particularly in IE).

(BTW: this is a secondary account, I'm normally sshumaker - noprocast rule and all).

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#34

Post by ReinH »

asnyder wrote: post #27
Keyframe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your answers. If you don't mind me asking, how is that model working for you? It's not that I am cheap of anything like that, but somehow I am put off by that model in a web framework. Maybe it's due to an abundance of pretty good free ones out there, since I'd never be put off by any other middleware that is not web oriented. Weird, I know.

That's a good question, one that we'll be answering in a detailed blog post later in the summer. In short, there is push back from many that would like a free and open-source product, but there's also acceptance from many seasoned developers and development shops that understand that a tool with NOLOH's feature set takes a significant amount of time and money to develop, test, and support. The truth of the matter is…

"I'm always surprised by those that will hem and haw over something that's not open-source." Open source has its place, as does proprietary software. Hemming and hawing aside, your market votes with their feet -- and that's exactly how you'll find out if you're properly situated.

That said, can you please not turn a post about Fun into a marketing platform for NOLOH? Fun may be fun, but your elevator pitch definitely isn't.

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#35

Post by asnyder »

ReinH wrote: post #34
asnyder wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question, one that we'll be answering in a detailed blog post later in the summer. In short, there is push back from many that would like a free and open-source product, but there's also acceptance from many seasoned developers and development shops that understand that a tool with NOLOH's feature set takes a significant amount of time and money to develop, test, and support. The truth of the matter is…

"I'm always surprised by those that will hem and haw over something that's not open-source." Open source has its place, as does proprietary software. Hemming and hawing aside, your market votes with their feet -- and that's exactly how you'll find out if you're properly situated. That said, can you please not turn a post about Fun into a marketing platform for NOLOH? Fun may be fun, but your elevator pitch definitely…

As you can see from my initial comment I was just pointing out similar functionality in NOLOH that can be done right now. Others replied with questions to which I answered. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a natural part of Hacker News. As you can see from some of the other posts, other technologies were mentioned too.

Since you just created your HN account you should know that HN is more about discussion than anything else.

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#36

Post by Groxx »

Twisol wrote: post #6

Quote - "What if you could build realtime web apps with the same ease as you build static web pages in PHP today?" It's interesting how far we've come, no? PHP-based pages were once considered dynamic.

I'll play devil's advocate:

Building static PHP pages is easy (and is demonstrated in the first block of code). So easy it's hard to beat by a significant margin, especially for small projects like this seems geared towards.

Building dynamic - much less real-time - PHP pages is not-so-easy, and certainly not that easy. At absolute simplest you have to look into JavaScript as well.

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#37

Post by xtho »

Groxx wrote: post #36
Twisol wrote: post #6

Quote - "What if you could build realtime web apps with the same ease as you build static web pages in PHP today?" It's interesting how far we've come, no? PHP-based pages were once considered dynamic.

I'll play devil's advocate: Building static PHP pages is easy (and is demonstrated in the first block of code). So easy it's hard to beat by a significant margin, especially for small projects like this seems geared towards. Building dynamic - much less real-time - PHP pages is not-so-easy, and certainly not that easy. At absolute simplest you have to look into JavaScript as well.

What would be the devil's term for HTML pages? Chiseled in stone?

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#38

Post by Twisol »

Groxx wrote: post #36
Twisol wrote: post #6

Quote - "What if you could build realtime web apps with the same ease as you build static web pages in PHP today?" It's interesting how far we've come, no? PHP-based pages were once considered dynamic.

I'll play devil's advocate: Building static PHP pages is easy (and is demonstrated in the first block of code). So easy it's hard to beat by a significant margin, especially for small projects like this seems geared towards. Building dynamic - much less real-time - PHP pages is not-so-easy, and certainly not that easy. At absolute simplest you have to look into JavaScript as well.

I'll admit I was a bit cryptic with my remark. :D I was considering things from a server standpoint when I wrote that comment, and from that sandpoint it's extremely obvious that PHP is dynamic, since the page is constructed every time.

But after a few minutes I realized that if you look at it from the client's point of view, the rendered page really is static. It's not always the same between requests, but once it's rendered, it's not likely to change. So you're right in that respect!

What I got a kick out of is that my remark could be taken both with and without its tongue-in-cheek intent. It really is amazing that, once upon a time, PHP was considered dynamic. And now we want more!

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#39

Post by jacquesm »

asnyder wrote: post #24
marcuswestin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun is MIT licensed :) http://github.com/marcuswestin/fun/commit/05870f3f54fda43090...

We feel that NOLOH is significantly advanced to warrant a small fee for commercial purposes. As you can see from my previous post we offer several free license options, including free licenses for open-source projects. Fortunately/Unfortunately (depending on your viewpoint), we live in a capitalistic society and need to recoup some of the costs associated with our team's development over the past six years. Furthermo…

Your comparison with Google is flawed, google does not ship the core software to third parties for integration in to their product, it's purely a service. So google not shipping their core as open source has a different impact on their users than NOLOH releasing the source of their core would have on theirs.

Re: Fun - a new programming language for the realtime web

#40

Post by asnyder »

jacquesm wrote: post #39
asnyder wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We feel that NOLOH is significantly advanced to warrant a small fee for commercial purposes. As you can see from my previous post we offer several free license options, including free licenses for open-source projects. Fortunately/Unfortunately (depending on your viewpoint), we live in a capitalistic society and need to recoup some of the costs associated with our team's development over the past six years. Furthermo…

Your comparison with Google is flawed, google does not ship the core software to third parties for integration in to their product, it's purely a service. So google not shipping their core as open source has a different impact on their users than NOLOH releasing the source of their core would have on theirs.

So if we were to create a WebApp then it's perfectly okay for it to be closed, but as soon as we decide to write tools, then it has to be open?

As was mentioned in the previous post, we try our best to open source anything non-central to the core. We also try our best to document everything within the core and provide you the ability to extend and override anything, thus reducing any real need for the source to be open. We're even working on legalese to ensure that the source would be opened in any catastrophic event to the company. What else can we do?

Whether or not NOLOH is open has the same amount of impact on our users. If they have an issue they report it and we fix it, furthermore, they could override any functionality in the meantime if they so desired.

Essentially, it seems that you're arguing that nobody is allowed to charge for development tools anymore. We should just open it up, and donate all that time, money and R&D. If we want to eat we should be creating WebApps, rather than creating the tools to help you make yours.

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