WebSharper: Make web apps in F# • Hacker News Board

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#31

Post by tarmil » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 2:32 AM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #28

This looks very interesting in the same way as Clojurescript but with F# and potentially a smoother experience. Has anyone used this that can provide some insight into it? Does it work with entity framework? OWIN? What's the story with the F# to javascript compilation; did they invent that or is it another project? Who are these people? I think it's a shame that the C#/.NET ecosystem can't seem to have FOSS nice thin…

"Does it work with entity framework?" -> It works with whatever .NET db tool you want to use, it's entirely agnostic in this regard.

"OWIN?" -> It can, with WebSharper.WebAPI [1].

"What's the story with the F# to javascript compilation; did they invent that or is it another project?" -> It's an in-house developed compiler.

"Who are these people?" -> A Hungarian company called IntelliFactory.

(full disclosure, I work at IntelliFactory.)

[1] https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper.webapi

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#32

Post by nbevans » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 3:09 AM UTC

iamleppert wrote: post #19

Another monolithic framework that will likely catch some unsuspecting CTO or director and ultimately be his demise, or someone who doesn't want to learn javascript (such people still exist, sadly).

Nobody really "wants" to learn JS. It's a hateful little language and the sooner it gets nuked from orbit or at least abstracted away to become merely the "assembly language of the web", the better.

While I don't agree WebSharper is monolithic - it's anything but that. I do agree that it is a bear trap. They could go bust at any moment and leave you with a big headache.

Even as a F# dev I have deliberately avoided using it because yes I agree with some of the sentiment here that the licensing model is a bit odd, but also the thought of needing to write a Binding for basically any JS library it doesn't support out of the box is quite a burden that will never go away. And can really slow down a new project that wants to iterate fast.

I firmly believe in using the best tools for the job at hand. So that means a F# back-end and a AngularJS front-end. It's a PITA maintaining two domain models in each, and similar validation logic etc, but such is life sometimes. What I lose in the domain model side, I gain back in a rich and vibrant set of available AngularJS modules and JS libraries.

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#33

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 4:22 AM UTC

solomatov wrote: post #21

_stephan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you worry about such hypothetical licence or price changes, you could also contact the company and negotiate a custom licence/contract.

Usually, such companies have quite high price for such contracts and I think it's not worth is. While technically it might be superior, it has small user base, smaller talent pool to hire from, less books/documentation. All this happens because people want to make money in an old fashioned way. The better option is to use, the most popular open source tool which in this area is GWT or TypeScript.

[deleted]

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#34

Post by g8gggu89 » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 4:32 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #23

macca321 wrote: post #14

It's well intentioned, but this project is destined to go nowhere fast. Abstracting away web development and http has been tried again and again, and always ends up being more hassle than plain ol' HTML+JS+HTTP. Then you've limited yourself to interop with the js libraries they've provided leaky wrappers over, or you can write your own leaky wrapper if you want to use coolnewthing.js you saw on github. And to cap it…

It's been around for a few years. I was able to use it to quickly whip up some sorta-complicated UIs for some internal tools. I despise JS, and have spent hours of time fixing simple casing errors or other things that static typing would fix. Plus F# the language is quite superior to JS, so I don't feel icky while working on it. The other benefit is that I can use all the same type definitions, so I don't need to wri…

GWT has long-ish compile times and it involves quite a house of cards, with getting the Eclipse plugin to talk to the browser plugin, for the 1? browser that actually has a plugin. Yeesh :(

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#35

Post by e12e » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 4:40 AM UTC

solomatov wrote: post #10

The project is really great, however license is really bad. A modern framework, should be open source under liberal license. Licenses like this worked in 90s, but currently they don't work.

At first I thought you meant this wasn't Free software, but then I had a look and realized it was AGPL[1] -- how's that not liberal enough?

What am I missing?

[1] https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper/blob/master/LIC...

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#36

Post by kgwxd » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 5:06 AM UTC

n72 wrote: post #15

Is this an arms length Jetbrains thing? If not, it seems awfully odd that its name is so close to Resharper and the parent company is called IntelliFactory, which is so close to IntelliJ. I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Just odd.

Exactly what I thought when I saw xSharper then Intellix. First thing I did was look to see if JetBrains had anything to do with it since that would have +1'd my interest. Quickly realizing they didn't -1'd it :/

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#37

Post by solomatov » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 5:22 AM UTC

e12e wrote: post #35

solomatov wrote: post #10

The project is really great, however license is really bad. A modern framework, should be open source under liberal license. Licenses like this worked in 90s, but currently they don't work.

At first I thought you meant this wasn't Free software, but then I had a look and realized it was AGPL[1] -- how's that not liberal enough? What am I missing? [1] https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper/blob/master/LIC...

This license makes it impossible to create non open source software without paying the company, which makes it practically useless for commercial development. Liberal license are licenses like BSD, Apache, etc, which allows people to create commercial derivative works without disclosing source code.

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#38

Post by e12e » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 5:53 AM UTC

solomatov wrote: post #37

e12e wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first I thought you meant this wasn't Free software, but then I had a look and realized it was AGPL[1] -- how's that not liberal enough? What am I missing? [1] https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper/blob/master/LIC...

This license makes it impossible to create non open source software without paying the company, which makes it practically useless for commercial development. Liberal license are licenses like BSD, Apache, etc, which allows people to create commercial derivative works without disclosing source code.

How does it make it useless? Why wouldn't you pay a license fee for developing commercial (closed source) software? If you want to sell the code to the client, use the AGPL, if you want to sell the (closed) service, get a commercial license?

The AGPL allows you to develop closed internal tools (no distribution to third party), optionally distribute without a cost under the AGPL -- and they also offer an option for commercial development. Asking for the code under a BSD license just sounds like you want to avoid paying for the cost of developing, supporting and maintaining a (presumably) quality product.

It's less than 400 USD/year for a freelancer... if it's any good it should pay for itself, practically?

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#39

Post by solomatov » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 6:00 AM UTC

e12e wrote: post #38

solomatov wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This license makes it impossible to create non open source software without paying the company, which makes it practically useless for commercial development. Liberal license are licenses like BSD, Apache, etc, which allows people to create commercial derivative works without disclosing source code.

How does it make it useless? Why wouldn't you pay a license fee for developing commercial (closed source) software? If you want to sell the code to the client, use the AGPL, if you want to sell the (closed) service, get a commercial license? The AGPL allows you to develop closed internal tools (no distribution to third party), optionally distribute without a cost under the AGPL -- and they also offer an option for co…

>It's less than 400 USD/year for a freelancer... if it's any good it should pay for itself, practically?

The problem isn't paying 400 USD/year. This is negligible cost compared to how much it costs to hire a developer. The problem is that software created in such a way wouldn't be widely used for reasons mentioned in one of my other comments.

Re: WebSharper: Make web apps in F#

#40

Post by e12e » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 6:33 AM UTC

solomatov wrote: post #39

e12e wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it make it useless? Why wouldn't you pay a license fee for developing commercial (closed source) software? If you want to sell the code to the client, use the AGPL, if you want to sell the (closed) service, get a commercial license? The AGPL allows you to develop closed internal tools (no distribution to third party), optionally distribute without a cost under the AGPL -- and they also offer an option for co…

>It's less than 400 USD/year for a freelancer... if it's any good it should pay for itself, practically? The problem isn't paying 400 USD/year. This is negligible cost compared to how much it costs to hire a developer. The problem is that software created in such a way wouldn't be widely used for reasons mentioned in one of my other comments.

I can't seem to find that. You mention something about risk -- but I'm not sure which risk that is. As I understand their license page, you need a license per developer. The resulting code you're free to sell under a closed license. If you want to sell work under a closed license, you're covered. If you want to sell it under an open license, you can sell it under the AGPL. Exactly what are you missing from this kind of dual-license?