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Why we need Python in the Browser

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Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#71

Post by hetman »

ttt_ wrote: post #24
hannes2000 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of essential Python features are not part of the language, but belong to its standard library. The thing that makes JavaScript so portable is that it basically has no such thing (except maybe Date and Math). So to make convenient use of Python in the browser (or even to be able to run currently existing Python code), you wouldn't just have to embed the interpreter – you would have to ship this huge library. And…

You also would not be able to minify it properly because of whitespace identation constraints. Or am I off on this?

If we're compiling to bytecode there is no need to minify.

Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#72

Post by hetman »

Drakim wrote: post #11
hetman wrote: post #7

For some time now I've been wondering why the primary scripting format consumed by browsers is JavaScript (a language intended for humans) and not some sort of standard bytecode that would be executed in a browser's virtual machine. What we need is the JSVM! In other words, something like the JVM but adapted for the browser. That probably means it would have a more dynamic typing focus since it makes sense for JavaSc…

I'm sure we could have some sort of JSVM, we could even have some sort of bytecode for the HTML, but it would destroy part of what makes the web so great: it's openness. The ability to view the source of any webpage, and even make chances and enhance it locally. There is also the fact that certain optimization can only be done by the browser if it has the actual source code rather than the compiled bytecode.

Not really. HTML would remain HTML. We're talking about JavaScript, and that is already minified (and sometimes obfuscated) beyond recognisability for a human.

I'd be curious to hear what kind of optimisations become unavailable.

Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#73

Post by BrennanCheung »

We don't need another language in the browser. We need a VM in the browser. As in byte codes. That way ANY language can be used. JS gets compiled down to a VM and then that is run in most implementations of JS. Why can't we just target that VM directly and use our own tools and compilers instead of being forced to compile it to javascript?

Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#74

Post by rst »

rufugee wrote: post #45
tomp wrote: post #23

Python in the browser would ultimately lead to all the same problems as Javascript in the browser. In a few years, we'll be hearing: Clojure in the browser, Scala in the browser, Haskell in the browser. I've been programming in Python full-time for the past 6 months, and it's main deficiency are the same as JavaScript's: no (optional) static typing - I'm really sick of writing checks whether my function got values of…

Doesn't dart actually do type checking? It's been a month or 2 since I played with it, but I could swear that it did type checking and reported errors when the type was wrong.

It has a "checked mode" and an unchecked mode, but they recommend the checks be disabled in production. The unchecked mode is actually called "production mode" in a lot of their documentation, including the language spec. (See the section on "types".)

Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#76

Post by halayli »

tomp wrote: post #23

Python in the browser would ultimately lead to all the same problems as Javascript in the browser. In a few years, we'll be hearing: Clojure in the browser, Scala in the browser, Haskell in the browser. I've been programming in Python full-time for the past 6 months, and it's main deficiency are the same as JavaScript's: no (optional) static typing - I'm really sick of writing checks whether my function got values of…

If you are checking your parameter types then you haven't used python enough.

Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#77

Post by justncase80 »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #32
nknight wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arrogant people preemptively declaring failure and trying to enforce their baseless declarations on others is what brings innovation to a crawl.

Come on now, that's a bit harsh. There are really smart people who have been trying this exact thing for years without success. Microsoft tried harder than anyone to make "JScript" part of .NET but finally gave up and Windows 8 has 2 first-class VMs.

It wasn't in the browser though. So it's a different story.

Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#78

Post by justncase80 »

Drakim wrote: post #11
hetman wrote: post #7

For some time now I've been wondering why the primary scripting format consumed by browsers is JavaScript (a language intended for humans) and not some sort of standard bytecode that would be executed in a browser's virtual machine. What we need is the JSVM! In other words, something like the JVM but adapted for the browser. That probably means it would have a more dynamic typing focus since it makes sense for JavaSc…

I'm sure we could have some sort of JSVM, we could even have some sort of bytecode for the HTML, but it would destroy part of what makes the web so great: it's openness. The ability to view the source of any webpage, and even make chances and enhance it locally. There is also the fact that certain optimization can only be done by the browser if it has the actual source code rather than the compiled bytecode.

In both .net and java there exists excellent decompilation tools where you can easily decompile the bytecode back into java or C# or anyother language. It's not necessarily going to give you the original source code (especially missing comments) but it works incredibly well nonetheless. You could easily debug in it and edit it dynamically in browser tools as well. This is pretty much a solved problem. I wouldn't consider this a limitation worth talking about again.

Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#79

Post by justncase80 »

Drakim wrote: post #11
hetman wrote: post #7

For some time now I've been wondering why the primary scripting format consumed by browsers is JavaScript (a language intended for humans) and not some sort of standard bytecode that would be executed in a browser's virtual machine. What we need is the JSVM! In other words, something like the JVM but adapted for the browser. That probably means it would have a more dynamic typing focus since it makes sense for JavaSc…

I'm sure we could have some sort of JSVM, we could even have some sort of bytecode for the HTML, but it would destroy part of what makes the web so great: it's openness. The ability to view the source of any webpage, and even make chances and enhance it locally. There is also the fact that certain optimization can only be done by the browser if it has the actual source code rather than the compiled bytecode.

Those optimizations can happen in the compiler that transforms the code into bytecode anyway.

Re: Why we need Python in the Browser

#80

Post by justncase80 »

ma2rten wrote: post #54

I like Python, but JavaScript is sort of good at what it does: evented programming. In javascript it's really easy write a closure. I have not worked with asynchronous frameworks like twisted, but I'd image it's a little more awkward. Am I wrong?

Python also has lambda syntax, therefore closures are quite easy to do. Example:

items.select {|e| e.isFoo}

It's arguably more terse and superior to javascript in that particular feature as well.

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