Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Janet Programming Language

janet-lang.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 124 posts

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#5

Post by andi999 »

So what is it good for?

Edit:maybe my comment was too short, but for me it is important to know what problem a new language solves (better). And I seriously think the landing page does not explain it well/at all. I mean like: D is C++ done right with garbage collection (and of course expand from there). Zig and Rust are safe languages and aim to replace C (with different strategies). And of course more than one sentence.

So if anybody knows what problem Janet lang solves, pls enlighten me.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#8

Post by masklinn »

andi999 wrote: post #5

So what is it good for? Edit:maybe my comment was too short, but for me it is important to know what problem a new language solves (better). And I seriously think the landing page does not explain it well/at all. I mean like: D is C++ done right with garbage collection (and of course expand from there). Zig and Rust are safe languages and aim to replace C (with different strategies). And of course more than one sente…

The home page does happen to have everything necessary: it has a basic examples, a few blurbs, and a "use cases" explanation:

> Janet makes a good system scripting language, or a language to embed in other programs. Think Lua or Guile. Janet also can be used for rapid prototyping, dynamic systems, and other domains where dynamic languages shine.

I could see the sections reordered, but it's hard to really fault this home page, it's pretty terse yet quite complete.

The biggest issue I have with it is the first-time reader is hit by the community / contribution bits before even knowing what the language is about. A two-columns layout would probably be useful there. And while having a basic in-page repl is nice, improving the discoverability of the language through it (e.g. providing autocompletion and inline help) would be neat.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#9

Post by andi999 »

masklinn wrote: post #8
andi999 wrote: post #5

So what is it good for? Edit:maybe my comment was too short, but for me it is important to know what problem a new language solves (better). And I seriously think the landing page does not explain it well/at all. I mean like: D is C++ done right with garbage collection (and of course expand from there). Zig and Rust are safe languages and aim to replace C (with different strategies). And of course more than one sente…

The home page does happen to have everything necessary: it has a basic examples, a few blurbs, and a "use cases" explanation: > Janet makes a good system scripting language, or a language to embed in other programs. Think Lua or Guile. Janet also can be used for rapid prototyping, dynamic systems, and other domains where dynamic languages shine. I could see the sections reordered, but it's hard to really fault this h…

I disagree. 'Think Lua' is not an good explanation. I mean if I want Lua, I use Lua.
Post reply on HN