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Crystal 0.25.1 released

crystal-lang.org

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Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#61

Post by RX14 »

coldtea wrote: post #51
everdev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've programmed in both and as far as I can tell here's the best use case for each: Go - I want to program explicitly and don't mind a little extra code or syntax to do it. I want close to the best performance possible and a single distributable binary. I don't mind being encouraged to "roll my own" api / web app rather than using a framework. Crystal - I want to feel like I'm writing in Ruby, but with type checking…

> I don't mind being a little less performant than other compiled languages. The same, if not more so, goes for Go. It might be statically compiled, but it's far from the most optimised performer.

Crystal - because it uses LLVM's optimizer - is probably better optimized at the codegen level than go. We still have a long way to go to get an optimized GC and similar though. Luckilly, bdwgc isn't too terrible.

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#62

Post by RX14 »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #44

Are compilation times still incredibly slow? That was the deal breaker for me with crystal, toy project of maybe a few hundred lines of code taking 30+s to compile edit: specifically a static release compile, with shards build --no-debug --release --link-flags "-static"

If your few hundred lines of code takes 30 seconds to compile, then either it's a crazy macro that expands to hundreds of thousands of lines of code, or I suggest you report it on github.

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#63

Post by sam0x17 »

wokawoka wrote: post #52

Godspeed to the Crystal team. Third party library means everything. Otherwise you end up with the same problem: "cool language...now I need to bind it to a C library to do this..." Still betting on Rust and it's ecosystem.

IMO Crystal as a lot more mass-appeal than Rust, and once people realize that the interest might swing in that direction as pretty much anyone could pick up Crystal. Rust is an awesome, very cool language, but Rust code is super weird looking, and the backflips you have to do to deal with safety make even basic tasks sometimes extraordinarily difficult, or so I've heard.

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#64

Post by RX14 »

Thaxll wrote: post #58
nlh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you’re (effectively) trolling here, but there are many reasons to “actually” use it. The community is great and helpful (check out the Gitter activity if you have any question about that). Lack of Windows support (for now) doesn’t matter if....you don’t use Windows. Multi-threading is being worked on. You’re rehashing the same 2 things many folks point out that Crystal is missing in its pre-1.0 state and while…

I'm actually not trolling, I'm 100% serious, there is no reason to use that language right now when you have others languages that are better on every aspect. Maybe Crystal will be ready at some point but right now it's not.

I don't think any language feels as close as crystal does to dynamic languages while being completely type safe with strong types. I think thats why so many people choose to use it so early. It truly doesn't feel like any other language out there.

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#65

Post by sdogruyol »

xiljin wrote: post #41
sergiotapia wrote: post #2

Anyone using Crystal in production? What do you use it for?

We're currently using Crystal 0.25.1 with the Kemal web framework to provide an online paycheck calculator for US based employees (it's basically a demo/tool for our SaaS based accounting, payroll and fund raising app). Really impressed with the language so far and hope to expand its use within our organization.

I'm the creator of Kemal, glad to see that you're liking it :)

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#66

Post by sdogruyol »

sam0x17 wrote: post #60
shawabawa3 wrote: post #44

Are compilation times still incredibly slow? That was the deal breaker for me with crystal, toy project of maybe a few hundred lines of code taking 30+s to compile edit: specifically a static release compile, with shards build --no-debug --release --link-flags "-static"

Our ~100k line web app takes 10-15 seconds to compile.

~100k LOC in Crystal? that's pretty amazing

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#67

Post by RX14 »

kodablah wrote: post #55
Blackstone4 wrote: post #5

Crystal looks interesting although I decided to learn Golang instead. It's more mature and the WIP features described below made me cautious (i.e. what other features are immature). Anyone know when Crystal will get concurrency-a-la-golang? i.e. running concurrent processes in parallel? At the moment I think it's still single-threaded. https://crystal-lang.org/docs/guides/concurrency.html Still no windows support: ht…

I think what we'll see coming soon, assuming some people work on it, is the recognition that Go's stdlib and all the supporting libs is where the real awesomeness lives. And for langs that support Go-style concurrency (like Crystal basically does, Kotlin, etc), people will start transpiling with only a couple of things dropping into the target language. There're just too many good pieces of crypto, http2, etc to rewr…

I can attest to this, the amount of times I've had a look and used go's stdlib as a reference for what to do when implementing something in the std for crystal is too many to count!

Unfortunately, transpiling has a huge bunch of problems, which you can see in for example how quickly nim vs crystal compiler matured - even though the crystal compiler is more complex. I'd be interested in seeing go's stdlib, ssa backend, and toolchain turned into a robust library. Like LLVM but including a GC, a stdlib with a CSP implementation, and a complete toolchain for static compilation.

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#68

Post by wokawoka »

sam0x17 wrote: post #63
wokawoka wrote: post #52

Godspeed to the Crystal team. Third party library means everything. Otherwise you end up with the same problem: "cool language...now I need to bind it to a C library to do this..." Still betting on Rust and it's ecosystem.

IMO Crystal as a lot more mass-appeal than Rust, and once people realize that the interest might swing in that direction as pretty much anyone could pick up Crystal. Rust is an awesome, very cool language, but Rust code is super weird looking, and the backflips you have to do to deal with safety make even basic tasks sometimes extraordinarily difficult, or so I've heard.

"make even basic tasks sometimes extraordinarily difficult, or so I've heard"

That would be an understatement :-)

But it's a trade-off. You fight the borrow-checker to ensure safe code.

It's really subjective. Are you using a language for front-end/middle-tier service/back-end process, etc. etc.

Back in the day - you had a handful of people writing C code via CGI for web development.

Every good language addresses a problem.

Rust = safe code. Crystal = IMO...productivity.

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#69

Post by MaxBarraclough »

spraak wrote: post #46
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, but I sympathise with it less and less as time goes on. Programming languages are just tools. Software development should strive to be a proper, rational, engineering discipline. Humans aren't robots, but one's choice of development tools is steered by real forces, both technical and business. I don't see that whim, unconstrained by such forces, has any place in the decision. Same goes for curiosity…

> Software development should strive to be a proper, rational, engineering discipline. Well, to use an analogy from civil engineering, I don't think choosing a programming language is always as critical as which type of concrete you choose and how it's reinforced. While it's true you wouldn't choose just any language, there is more room for preference here. Especially because you can switch languages for a project, b…

> you can switch languages for a project

What do you mean? If you're 100kloc in, you pay a considerable price in jumping ship. Rewriting means throwing out your investment. Interfacing two different languages for one project is rarely a good move.

> I'm glad people do because otherwise we wouldn't even see any language as popular as it is.

Sure, me too. Like I said, I do like new programming languages, I just don't see myself using one for serious work.

Re: Crystal 0.25.1 released

#70

Post by RX14 »

wokawoka wrote: post #68
sam0x17 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Crystal as a lot more mass-appeal than Rust, and once people realize that the interest might swing in that direction as pretty much anyone could pick up Crystal. Rust is an awesome, very cool language, but Rust code is super weird looking, and the backflips you have to do to deal with safety make even basic tasks sometimes extraordinarily difficult, or so I've heard.

"make even basic tasks sometimes extraordinarily difficult, or so I've heard" That would be an understatement :-) But it's a trade-off. You fight the borrow-checker to ensure safe code. It's really subjective. Are you using a language for front-end/middle-tier service/back-end process, etc. etc. Back in the day - you had a handful of people writing C code via CGI for web development. Every good language addresses a p…

Exactly. I wouldn't write a kernel or shared library in Crystal and I wouldn't write a webapp in Rust.
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