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digitalmars.D - Advertise D's great compatibilty with JavaScript

reply Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is to 
JavaScript.

For instance, I have to maintain two similar versions of Pendown, 
a Markdown alternative for colored documents.

There is a server-side version, in D :

     https://github.com/senselogic/PENDOWN/blob/master/pendown.d

And a client-side version, in JavaScript :

     https://github.com/senselogic/PENDOWN/blob/master/pendown.js

If you look at both file, you should see how close both files are.

Thanks to a few methods (charAt, slice, push, pop, etc) added to 
the string and array types, when I change a function 
implementation in one version, all I have to do is copy-paste the 
modifications in the other file and just make a few minor changes 
(==/===, ~/+, etc).

Everything else works unchanged : string and array methods 
(length, split, join, startsWith, endsWith), closures, etc.

I think that's really AWESOME to have designed the D language and 
its standard library in such a way, keeping it so close to 
JavaScript, the most used scripting languages on earth !!!

That's why I personally advertise it like a "strongly-typed 
super-powered JavaScript", as it is the best scripting language I 
know.

Even if D is obviously much more than that, this still accurately 
describes what many programmers should feel when using this 
fantastic language.

Therefore I think that this closeness is something that should be 
advertised much more, so that people know that :
- a JavaScript programmer will immediately feel at home with D;
- porting text manipulation code back and forth between D and 
JavaScript is just a breeze.
Jun 18 2017
next sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 10:38:49 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.

 [...]


Talk to Mike Parker about submitting a blog post, detailing the 
similarities you see and using this example, for the official D 
blog.
Jun 18 2017
parent Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 16:25:06 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 10:38:49 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.

 [...]


 Talk to Mike Parker about submitting a blog post, detailing the 
 similarities you see and using this example, for the official D 
 blog.


Indeed the following introduction page is missing :

https://dlang.org/jstod.html
Jun 18 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Meta <jared771 gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 10:38:49 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.

 For instance, I have to maintain two similar versions of 
 Pendown, a Markdown alternative for colored documents.

 There is a server-side version, in D :

     https://github.com/senselogic/PENDOWN/blob/master/pendown.d

 And a client-side version, in JavaScript :

     https://github.com/senselogic/PENDOWN/blob/master/pendown.js

 If you look at both file, you should see how close both files 
 are.

 Thanks to a few methods (charAt, slice, push, pop, etc) added 
 to the string and array types, when I change a function 
 implementation in one version, all I have to do is copy-paste 
 the modifications in the other file and just make a few minor 
 changes (==/===, ~/+, etc).

 Everything else works unchanged : string and array methods 
 (length, split, join, startsWith, endsWith), closures, etc.

 I think that's really AWESOME to have designed the D language 
 and its standard library in such a way, keeping it so close to 
 JavaScript, the most used scripting languages on earth !!!

 That's why I personally advertise it like a "strongly-typed 
 super-powered JavaScript", as it is the best scripting language 
 I know.

 Even if D is obviously much more than that, this still 
 accurately describes what many programmers should feel when 
 using this fantastic language.

 Therefore I think that this closeness is something that should 
 be advertised much more, so that people know that :
 - a JavaScript programmer will immediately feel at home with D;
 - porting text manipulation code back and forth between D and 
 JavaScript is just a breeze.


We should be careful not to make *too* close a comparison. While 
Javascript is a necessary evil for web applications and some 
people do like it, I get the feeling that it's becoming less and 
less liked. It's not quite a fractal of bad design like PHP, but 
it has more than a few drastic shortcomings and design flaws.
Jun 18 2017
parent reply rikki cattermole <rikki cattermole.co.nz> writes:
On 18/06/2017 5:29 PM, Meta wrote:

 We should be careful not to make *too* close a comparison. While 
 Javascript is a necessary evil for web applications and some people do 
 like it, I get the feeling that it's becoming less and less liked. It's 
 not quite a fractal of bad design like PHP, but it has more than a few 
 drastic shortcomings and design flaws.


The moment webasm becomes a realistic target, I will do EVERYTHING in my 
power to get Lua in the browser (yes there already is solutions).

Stuff Javascript, kill it, replace it with something actually properly 
designed!
Jun 18 2017
parent reply Laeeth Isharc <laeethnospam nospam.laeeth.com> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 23:11:25 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:

 On 18/06/2017 5:29 PM, Meta wrote:

 We should be careful not to make *too* close a comparison. 
 While Javascript is a necessary evil for web applications and 
 some people do like it, I get the feeling that it's becoming 
 less and less liked. It's not quite a fractal of bad design 
 like PHP, but it has more than a few drastic shortcomings and 
 design flaws.


 The moment webasm becomes a realistic target, I will do 
 EVERYTHING in my power to get Lua in the browser (yes there 
 already is solutions).

 Stuff Javascript, kill it, replace it with something actually 
 properly designed!


Why not D? And why wait till it's a realistic target? Wasm is 
clearly going to be the answer and it's an answer to a problem 
that exists, so what does one gain by waiting?
Jun 18 2017
next sibling parent reply rikki cattermole <rikki cattermole.co.nz> writes:
On 19/06/2017 2:57 AM, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 23:11:25 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:

 On 18/06/2017 5:29 PM, Meta wrote:

 We should be careful not to make *too* close a comparison. While 
 Javascript is a necessary evil for web applications and some people 
 do like it, I get the feeling that it's becoming less and less liked. 
 It's not quite a fractal of bad design like PHP, but it has more than 
 a few drastic shortcomings and design flaws.


 The moment webasm becomes a realistic target, I will do EVERYTHING in 
 my power to get Lua in the browser (yes there already is solutions).

 Stuff Javascript, kill it, replace it with something actually properly 
 designed!


 
 Why not D? And why wait till it's a realistic target? Wasm is clearly 
 going to be the answer and it's an answer to a problem that exists, so 
 what does one gain by waiting?


(1) eval
(2) time+not all API's required are available just yet.
Jun 18 2017
parent reply John Gabriele <jgabriele fastmail.fm> writes:
On Monday, 19 June 2017 at 02:02:05 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:

 On 19/06/2017 2:57 AM, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 23:11:25 UTC, rikki cattermole 
 wrote:

 On 18/06/2017 5:29 PM, Meta wrote:

 We should be careful not to make *too* close a comparison. 
 While Javascript is a necessary evil for web applications 
 and some people do like it, I get the feeling that it's 
 becoming less and less liked. It's not quite a fractal of 
 bad design like PHP, but it has more than a few drastic 
 shortcomings and design flaws.


 The moment webasm becomes a realistic target, I will do 
 EVERYTHING in my power to get Lua in the browser (yes there 
 already is solutions).

 Stuff Javascript, kill it, replace it with something actually 
 properly designed!


 
 Why not D? And why wait till it's a realistic target? Wasm is 
 clearly going to be the answer and it's an answer to a problem 
 that exists, so what does one gain by waiting?


 (1) eval
 (2) time+not all API's required are available just yet.


Why do you choose Lua? Whatever replaces Javascript (and compiles 
to wasm) will be used for large apps, like how Javascript is 
currently used. My understanding is that Lua is not particularly 
well suited for building large apps.
Oct 13 2017
parent Marco Leise <Marco.Leise gmx.de> writes:
Am Fri, 13 Oct 2017 17:57:12 +0000
schrieb John Gabriele <jgabriele fastmail.fm>:


 Why do you choose Lua? Whatever replaces Javascript (and compiles 
 to wasm) will be used for large apps, like how Javascript is 
 currently used. My understanding is that Lua is not particularly 
 well suited for building large apps.


I agree with that. Whenever the time comes to make adjustments
to the Lua code I miss the good old "compiler will tell me
where type became incompatible" style of refactoring. As common
in scripting languages nothing stops you from having typos in
a property name that you want to assign a new value. It'll
just create a new one.

-- 
Marco
Oct 14 2017
prev sibling parent Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 19 June 2017 at 01:57:00 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 23:11:25 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:

 On 18/06/2017 5:29 PM, Meta wrote:

 We should be careful not to make *too* close a comparison. 
 While Javascript is a necessary evil for web applications and 
 some people do like it, I get the feeling that it's becoming 
 less and less liked. It's not quite a fractal of bad design 
 like PHP, but it has more than a few drastic shortcomings and 
 design flaws.


 The moment webasm becomes a realistic target, I will do 
 EVERYTHING in my power to get Lua in the browser (yes there 
 already is solutions).

 Stuff Javascript, kill it, replace it with something actually 
 properly designed!


 Why not D? And why wait till it's a realistic target? Wasm is 
 clearly going to be the answer and it's an answer to a problem 
 that exists, so what does one gain by waiting?


+1

At the moment, for web development I use Go or PHP on the server 
side, and JavaScript on the client side.

Using Node.js on the server side would allow me to use the same 
language on both side, which would be PERFECT.

But programming asynchronous code with Node.js is a pain in the 
ass compared to Go.

D's syntax and standard libraries make it very similar to both 
JavaScript and Go.

I know it because it was incredibly easy to convert my Node.js 
tools to D.

With Wasm, D has the potential to become a perfect alternative to 
Dart and JavaScript, by being available on both the server and 
the client side.

This is a unique window of opportunity for D, as this would make 
it a very solid and serious contender to both Dart, Go, 
JavaScript and C++.

So why not try to promote the development of a D to Wasm compiler 
as a master thesis to the software engineering students in 
universities ?
Oct 14 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply JN <666total wp.pl> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 10:38:49 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.

 [...]


I don't think that's a good selling point. The obvious reply is 
"but why should I use an unknown language like D if I could just 
use node.js and share the client and server code?".
Jun 18 2017
next sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 16:31:28 UTC, JN wrote:

 On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 10:38:49 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.

 [...]


 I don't think that's a good selling point. The obvious reply is 
 "but why should I use an unknown language like D if I could 
 just use node.js and share the client and server code?".


Speed, you're limited by the browser but not on the server.  I'm 
running this regex benchmark right now and the D version beats 
the top C and Rust ones from this list on linux/x64 with a single 
core:

http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/regexredux.html

I need to parallelize the D version and compare with multi-core 
also.  Of course, once webasm takes off, everyone will simply 
compile their server code to webasm and ditch javascript 
altogether:

https://blog.figma.com/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-time-by-3x-76f3f2395164

But then, we can sell those javascript programmers on moving to 
D. ;)
Jun 18 2017
parent Sebastiaan Koppe <mail skoppe.eu> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 18:06:50 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Of course, once webasm takes off, everyone will simply compile 
 their server code to webasm and ditch javascript altogether.


Although there are proposals to access the dom directly from 
webasm [1], right now you'll still need js. And I doubt it will 
change anytime soon. Once it does though -> game-changer.

[1]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/GC.md
Jun 18 2017
prev sibling parent Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
 I don't think that's a good selling point. The obvious reply is 
 "but why should I use an unknown language like D if I could 
 just use node.js and share the client and server code?".



 I don't think that's a good selling point. The obvious reply is 
 "but why should I use an unknown language like D if I could 
 just use node.js and share the client and server code?".


Ok, I could agree with you.

For instance using the same JavaScript code for the server-side 
version of Pendown would avoid me the dual maintenance.

But the D version runs so much faster !!!

And I also agree that some people, including me, liked the 
expressiveness of JavaScript and Node.js, but not its MANY design 
and implementation flaws !!!

This is why I've actually converted ALL my old node.js command 
line tools to D over the last few months.

My github repo is full of them...

Because D really "feels" like JavaScript, it was very easy to 
convert all my Node.js scripts to D.

And the resulting tools are all better than before, because D is 
both JavaScript and C++ done right, fixing all their major flaws 
in the same time.

That's why I always say that D feels like a "strongly-typed 
super-powered JavaScript".

It's clearly a SUPERIOR and BETTER alternative to JavaScript to 
implement text manipulation tools.

And btw I'm still waiting to find something I really dislike in 
D...
Jun 18 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 10:38:49 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.

 [...]


This was a good talk last year you might be interested in: 
http://dconf.org/2016/talks/schadek.html

-Steve
Jun 18 2017
parent Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
 This was a good talk last year you might be interested in: 
 http://dconf.org/2016/talks/schadek.html

 -Steve


Nice pick :)

I'm currently planning to use D instead of Go for web 
development, so I may try such an approach, if I somehow manage 
to understand how to reproduce it :)

At the moment I still use a command-line tool (Basil) to generate 
the Go structs matching the db design.

Very silly, I know, but that was the simplest way I could find to 
easily keep them in sync...
Jun 18 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 10:38:49 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.


Have you ever seen my jsvar.d ?

http://forum.dlang.org/thread/kuxfkakrgjaofkrdvgmx forum.dlang.org
Jun 18 2017
parent Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
 Have you ever seen my jsvar.d ?

 http://forum.dlang.org/thread/kuxfkakrgjaofkrdvgmx forum.dlang.org


AWESOME !!!
Jun 19 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 10:38:49 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.

 For instance, I have to maintain two similar versions of 
 Pendown, a Markdown alternative for colored documents.

 There is a server-side version, in D :

     https://github.com/senselogic/PENDOWN/blob/master/pendown.d

 And a client-side version, in JavaScript :

     https://github.com/senselogic/PENDOWN/blob/master/pendown.js

 If you look at both file, you should see how close both files 
 are.

 Thanks to a few methods (charAt, slice, push, pop, etc) added 
 to the string and array types, when I change a function 
 implementation in one version, all I have to do is copy-paste 
 the modifications in the other file and just make a few minor 
 changes (==/===, ~/+, etc).

 Everything else works unchanged : string and array methods 
 (length, split, join, startsWith, endsWith), closures, etc.

 I think that's really AWESOME to have designed the D language 
 and its standard library in such a way, keeping it so close to 
 JavaScript, the most used scripting languages on earth !!!

 That's why I personally advertise it like a "strongly-typed 
 super-powered JavaScript", as it is the best scripting language 
 I know.

 Even if D is obviously much more than that, this still 
 accurately describes what many programmers should feel when 
 using this fantastic language.

 Therefore I think that this closeness is something that should 
 be advertised much more, so that people know that :
 - a JavaScript programmer will immediately feel at home with D;
 - porting text manipulation code back and forth between D and 
 JavaScript is just a breeze.


Not directly related to my post, but in the unlikely event that 
somebody on this forum has started to use Pendown, I must inform 
you that I've slightly changed the list and image syntaxes to 
make the even more practical.

I always do my best to avoid making breaking changes in my open 
source tools, but as this project has zero stars on Github, I 
thought I could freely fix the syntax, as this generally implies 
that people have no interest in using it.

And if I was wrong, that's really easy to fix the existing 
documents anyway, by making just a few find'n'replace in any 
plain text editor...
Oct 12 2017
parent Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
As just requested by a user, I've put the image size on the 
right. Nice remark, this indeed improves their readability.

The image syntax will now be frozen this way : 
[[image_name.jpg:size]].

To update the existing files, just open them all in Geany, and 
replace the regular expression "\[\[(.+?):(.+?)\]\]" by 

"\1\1*   " to fix the old lists.

Many thanks for this positive feedback from the D community, that 
was really appreciated :D
Oct 13 2017
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/18/2017 3:38 AM, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is to JavaScript.


There's also a D implementation of Javascript:

https://github.com/DigitalMars/DMDScript
Oct 14 2017
next sibling parent reply Dmitry Olshansky <dmitry.olsh gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 07:45:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/18/2017 3:38 AM, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.


 There's also a D implementation of Javascript:

 https://github.com/DigitalMars/DMDScript


The surprising strength of DMDScript is that it uses the same GC 
as D does, making sharing of objects between JS and Host 
transparent and 0-copy.
A typical JS engine run internal GC which the host has to 
interact with in cumbersome ways b/c it doesn’t know about 
hosts’s memory.
Oct 14 2017
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 10/14/2017 12:54 AM, Dmitry Olshansky wrote:

 On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 07:45:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/18/2017 3:38 AM, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is to JavaScript.


 There's also a D implementation of Javascript:

 https://github.com/DigitalMars/DMDScript


 
 The surprising strength of DMDScript is that it uses the same GC as D does, 
 making sharing of objects between JS and Host transparent and 0-copy.
 A typical JS engine run internal GC which the host has to interact with in 
 cumbersome ways b/c it doesn’t know about hosts’s memory.


I always thought DMDScript would be a great plugin extension language to use in 
a D IDE.
Oct 14 2017
prev sibling parent reply Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 07:45:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/18/2017 3:38 AM, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.


 There's also a D implementation of Javascript:

 https://github.com/DigitalMars/DMDScript


What about a DScript interpreter ?

I mean an interactive D code compiler, which compiles D code on 
the fly and runs it directly within an application, like the 
eval() function of JavaScript.

Something that works at least for some D subset.

For C++, there is the Cling interactive interpreter, based on 
LLVM :

https://github.com/vgvassilev/cling
Oct 14 2017
next sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 10/14/2017 1:52 AM, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 07:45:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/18/2017 3:38 AM, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is to JavaScript.


 There's also a D implementation of Javascript:

 https://github.com/DigitalMars/DMDScript


 
 What about a DScript interpreter ?


That could be done, but for small plugins a small dynamic language can be more 
convenient.
Oct 14 2017
prev sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 08:52:54 UTC, Ecstatic Coder 
wrote:

 On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 07:45:06 UTC, Walter Bright 
 wrote:

 On 6/18/2017 3:38 AM, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it is 
 to JavaScript.


 There's also a D implementation of Javascript:

 https://github.com/DigitalMars/DMDScript


 What about a DScript interpreter ?

 I mean an interactive D code compiler, which compiles D code on 
 the fly and runs it directly within an application, like the 
 eval() function of JavaScript.

 Something that works at least for some D subset.

 For C++, there is the Cling interactive interpreter, based on 
 LLVM :

 https://github.com/vgvassilev/cling


Something like this?

https://github.com/dlang-community/drepl
Oct 14 2017
parent Ecstatic Coder <ecstatic.coder gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 10:48:40 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 08:52:54 UTC, Ecstatic Coder 
 wrote:

 On Saturday, 14 October 2017 at 07:45:06 UTC, Walter Bright 
 wrote:

 On 6/18/2017 3:38 AM, Ecstatic Coder wrote:

 Something I really appreciate a lot with D is how close it 
 is to JavaScript.


 There's also a D implementation of Javascript:

 https://github.com/DigitalMars/DMDScript


 What about a DScript interpreter ?

 I mean an interactive D code compiler, which compiles D code 
 on the fly and runs it directly within an application, like 
 the eval() function of JavaScript.

 Something that works at least for some D subset.

 For C++, there is the Cling interactive interpreter, based on 
 LLVM :

 https://github.com/vgvassilev/cling


 Something like this?

 https://github.com/dlang-community/drepl


Not exactly the LLVM-based compile-to-memory interpreter I was 
thinking about, but this could indeed do the job ;)
Oct 14 2017