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The Joy of Haxe

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Re: The Joy of Haxe

#61

Post by ofrzeta »

mromnia wrote: post #60

Is it possible to use Haxe for anything except gamedev and keep the crossplatform aspect? For example for backend webdev, it seems like you can compile to nodeJS and use express, but then you can't really compile to any other platform. You can compile to PHP, but you're also stuck with PHP frameworks. Basically what I'm saying is that for Haxe to be truly crossplatform, it requires Haxe-native frameworks in the targe…

Does it realistically make sense to have a web meta-framework that compiles to different backend frameworks such as Node.js or PHP?

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#62

Post by mromnia »

ofrzeta wrote: post #61
mromnia wrote: post #60

Is it possible to use Haxe for anything except gamedev and keep the crossplatform aspect? For example for backend webdev, it seems like you can compile to nodeJS and use express, but then you can't really compile to any other platform. You can compile to PHP, but you're also stuck with PHP frameworks. Basically what I'm saying is that for Haxe to be truly crossplatform, it requires Haxe-native frameworks in the targe…

Does it realistically make sense to have a web meta-framework that compiles to different backend frameworks such as Node.js or PHP?

Maybe, maybe not. It just feels to me like Haxe only really makes sense for gamedev, and even then only barely, because of huge, crossplatform game engines like Unity.

I really like the language (after reading the tutorial at least), but I'm not sure where would using it make sense. For backend stuff it just seems completely inferior to Typescript (considering library support especially).

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#63

Post by k_ »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #40

I want to love Haxe but tooling outside of Windows seems limited, although I havent looked at how good VS Code is with it yet, so maybe I'll look into that. Otherwise I am going to stick to D and Python.

I never used Haxe in windows. I agree that ten years ago tooling wasn't all that great (on linux at least), but now with the focus on VS Code we have a language server following Microsoft's LSP [0] that we can even use on other editors (sublime text, neovim, etc.).

[0]: https://langserver.org/

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#64

Post by GordonS »

dyarosla wrote: post #48
Lerc wrote: post #30

I used haxe a lot in the past, but with the newer enhancements to JavaScript I found that I ended up using JavaScript. Destructuring assignment arrow functions and more concise object literals, ... operator enable much more concise and readable code. Haxe seems to be much more conservative in development. Haze is aquiring arrow functions but I think there was quite a degree of initial resistance to the notion. I prop…

Sucks to hear about your experience. Like you said yes arrow functions are slated for the next major release. As for the process, I think it has become a little more stringent for sure. To submit a request for consideration you’d need to submit a proposal on GitHub with attention paid to impact to existing code and impact on future Haxe features- perhaps your feature request wasn’t deemed to be thought out enough? It…

> perhaps your feature request wasn’t deemed to be thought out enough?

In which case surely it should be discussed, rather than shut down with "no"?

This thread had me interested in Haxe, but reading these comments about the unfriendly, negative responses to proposals has put me right off.

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#65

Post by pjmlp »

roywiggins wrote: post #14

I am glad Haxe is still going strong. I remember when it was an alternate language for the Flash virtual machine- everyone thought it was very cool at the time. Now Flash is dead, long live Haxe!

Flash might be dead for HN Flash haters crowd, for everyone else it lives on as Animate.

https://www.adobe.com/products/animate.html

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#66

Post by giancarlostoro »

k_ wrote: post #63
giancarlostoro wrote: post #40

I want to love Haxe but tooling outside of Windows seems limited, although I havent looked at how good VS Code is with it yet, so maybe I'll look into that. Otherwise I am going to stick to D and Python.

I never used Haxe in windows. I agree that ten years ago tooling wasn't all that great (on linux at least), but now with the focus on VS Code we have a language server following Microsoft's LSP [0] that we can even use on other editors (sublime text, neovim, etc.). [0]: https://langserver.org/

Good to know, and yeah, at least someone knows what I meant.

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#67

Post by catach »

dyarosla wrote: post #47
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things are generic critiques of haxe: standard library has poor documentation and big feature gaps, often important third party tools are basically abandoned, no support, generated code is extremely hard to debug or understand (both C++ and Javascript outputs for us). Conditional compilation is a horrible, horrible idea period, and is particularly easy to turn into an indecipherable brittle mess in haxe. This wa…

I’d love to hear more. What’s missing from the std features? Where are the docs lacking? I will agree to your point about abandoned third party tools but that happens with any language? It’s just more pronounced on a less popular one. I will also agree about the code it produces: the point of a transpiled language isn’t for its output to necessarily be readable but first and foremost fast. You wouldnt expect c to pro…

> Where are the docs lacking?

One thing that gets me is that the Input/Output section of the official manual [0] has gone unwritten for quite a while, now. [1]

[0] https://haxe.org/manual/std.html

[1] https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/HaxeManual/issues/16

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#68

Post by zerr »

dyarosla wrote: post #12

Like the author, I too have the same opinion after having used Haxe for over 5 years. Five years on from starting with Haxe at FontStruct, I’m genuinely surprised to find that I feel no regret whatsoever regarding our decision to go with the technology. I absolutely adore the language. Not only is it awesome at transpiling/compiling to native across this whole spectrum of targets, the language itself keeps surprising…

hmm, there are #if js/#elseif flash blocks in the drawing example using canvas - does that mean the basic drawing is not cross-platform?

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#69

Post by village-idiot »

m_sahaf wrote: post #38
simion314 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I get confused, google had/has some transpilers/compiulers and other web tools that were based on Java and Java tooling.

You were probably thinking of GWT and/or Closure-Compiler

Side note: it really pisses me off that Google picks language and tool names that have really poor SEO and are often names for existing CS concepts. Go and Dart have terrible SEO, and Chrome and Closure already mean something in their fields.

Drives me nuts.

Re: The Joy of Haxe

#70

Post by dyarosla »

GordonS wrote: post #64
dyarosla wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sucks to hear about your experience. Like you said yes arrow functions are slated for the next major release. As for the process, I think it has become a little more stringent for sure. To submit a request for consideration you’d need to submit a proposal on GitHub with attention paid to impact to existing code and impact on future Haxe features- perhaps your feature request wasn’t deemed to be thought out enough? It…

> perhaps your feature request wasn’t deemed to be thought out enough? In which case surely it should be discussed, rather than shut down with "no"? This thread had me interested in Haxe, but reading these comments about the unfriendly, negative responses to proposals has put me right off.

To play devils advocate: if every feature request had to be thoroughly discussed you’d never get anywhere.. the onus should be on the proposer.

That said, you can always file an issue in github and have a discussion there. For Haxe it’s a very active location for discussion there.

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