2010/12/28 Christian Stimming <stimm...@tuhh.de>: > Am Dienstag, 28. Dezember 2010 schrieb Jeff Warnica: >> The question shouldn't be "C++ or not", but "what is the best >> 2nd/runtime/scripting language?" >> >> In 2010/2011, given that Gnucash isn't a game, there is really only one >> choice: Javascript. While http://live.gnome.org/Gjs seems rather dead, >> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell is obviously committed to Javascript (and >> Gjs as the binding toolkit). The low-level infrastructure is there, Gnome >> 3.0/GnomeShell 1.0 time frame is shorter then Gnucash 2.6, at the very >> least. > > As I've written in my other message: Yes. A scripting language might be even > better than any compiled language such as C++. I would love to see an example > project which shows how something similar to gnucash can be build using > Javascript. I'm not familiar with GnomeShell so far, so I won't work on such > an experiment as a starter. But if someone can show to us how something > similar to gnucash would be started in Javascript, I would surely consider > this a very good option to choose. > > One minor issue against the language, though: IMHO the syntax sucks. Also, for > a newcomer it sucks that the syntax tricks you into thinking it were similar > to Java. It is not, not at all. In reality it is rather much more similar to > Scheme (heh), but the syntax tries its best to hide this from the programmer. > Ok, maybe that's just the beginner's learning curve, but currently I don't > like the language. You are heartly invited to prove me otherwise.
I don't want to start a language war, but you and I disagreed some time ago about C++, which I think is one of the most awful examples of programming language mis-design I can think of. This is not to say that I think your Cutecash experiment was foolishness; I don't. C++ gave you access to primitives in Qt that C and gtk do not and despite what I consider to be the deficits of C++ as a language, the combination is almost certainly more powerful than C/gtk. But perhaps Gnucash can, in the future, have its cake and eat it, too: a well-designed, easy-to-learn-and-write language that sits on top of the kind of primitives needed to easily building a better GUI for gnucash. An earlier message from you mentions Python and Ruby; those may well be candidates. I have direct experience with Python and think it's very well done (language, documentation, richness of the library is all there). I don't know Ruby, but I've heard good things about it, but I'm not in a position to comment further. I also have direct experience with C++ over a number of years and you already know my thoughts about it. I would also second your open-ness to an interpreted language. Today's hardware is so fast that interpreted languages can deliver GUI performance that is compatible with human reaction times and desire for instant gratification. Javascript? I have direct experience with it, too, but not a lot, but it didn't strike me as a horror show. As for its similarity to Scheme, that seems like a pretty big stretch, but if it's true, I see that as a feature, not a bug :-) /Don > > Best Regards, > > Christian > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-devel mailing list > gnucash-devel@gnucash.org > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel > _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel