On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Stephen Handley <stephen.hand...@gmail.com>wrote:
> +1 on this being blogged. not into TypeScript but would be very interested > in you elaborating on the two rules / js optimization info you mention in > the beginning. Stephen, Isaac was kind enough to post this yesterday: http://blog.izs.me/post/32697104162/thoughts-on-typescript :) Rick > > > On Monday, October 1, 2012 4:11:12 PM UTC-7, Dick Hardt wrote: > >> +1 to putting this on your blog Isaac. >> >> On Oct 1, 2012, at 3:50 PM, Rick Waldron <waldro...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 6:46 PM, Isaac Schlueter <i...@izs.me> wrote: >> >>> I've been through the paces quite a few times trying to optimize the >>> hell out of very hot code. In the last few years, this has been >>> mostly in V8, of course, but the basic principles are not too far off >>> in different JS environments. >>> >>> It's important to not put too much weight in rules of thumb, and we >>> programmers are particularly bad at that, given our tendencies towards >>> abstraction. But that disclaimer out of the way, I've found very few >>> exceptions to these two rules: >>> >>> 1. If you have more than one of something, use a class; not a "plain >>> old object". I recently changed the "url" module in node-master, and >>> made it twice as fast by replacing the plain {}-style objects with Url >>> class instances. >>> 2. Always put the same kinds of things in the same places. An array >>> of numbers should only ever have numbers; an array of objects should >>> always only have objects. If a FooBar object has a "foo" member, then >>> set this.foo to *something* in the constructor. >>> >>> It's really nice writing code in a loosely typed language. Most of >>> the time, these optimizations are not all that relevant, and when they >>> are, the odd exception is probably fine, if it's truly exceptional. >>> But when you really care about maximizing speed, that flexibility can >>> make it surprisingly tricky to track down all the deviations. >>> >>> I'm probably not going to stop using Vim to write code any time soon. >>> I'm probably never going to use Windows as my development environment. >>> Code completion sort of annoys me, and I've usually turned it off >>> when I had editors that did it. But I'm actually very excited about >>> TypeScript. >>> >>> It'd be a great idea to write up a TypeScript header file for the API >>> surface in Node. Then, we could automatically test for API >>> deviations, validate and flesh out our documentation, etc. Static >>> typing *does* confer some very relevant value. Typically it does so >>> at the cost of flexibility, but this brings a lot of the benefits to >>> JavaScript in an optional way, which is very powerful. >>> >>> Also, it's not reinventing the language. It is JavaScript, mostly. >>> Or JavaScript entirely, if you just write JS and have a separate >>> declaration file, but with the benefits of linting that does more than >>> whine about comma placement and indentation, and *actually finds >>> subtle errors* in your programs. >>> >>> There have been a lot of attempts to come up with ways to add type >>> hints and API-auto-documentation to JavaScript. (JSDoc, YUIDoc, >>> AS3/ES4, etc.) Most of those are not very compelling. The fact that >>> Microsoft is doing this, and building products on top of it (which >>> they will inevitably hope to make money on), is very encouraging. It >>> says to me that this is going to be a real thing with real developers >>> working on it, with budgets and timelines, and the whole bit. It's >>> somebody's job. >>> >>> >>> I had some suggestions that I passed along to the folks at Microsoft: >>> >>> 1. It'd be *amazing* if there was a way to automatically try to guess >>> at the best types, given a set of JavaScript code. Writing a >>> declaration file is insanely tedious. I don't want to do it, and >>> that's a blocker to adoption. I know that this is a hard problem, and >>> totally not what you'd expect in a first release, but hey, V8 is >>> guessing types pretty good, so it must be possible. That would make >>> me happy. >>> >>> 2. It'd be nice (as I think someone mentioned in this thread) to let >>> it put run-time type-checking into exposed functions at the API >>> surface. If this needed to be a dev flag or something, then that's >>> fine. I'd go ahead and let it in exported functions, though. We have >>> a lot of that code in Node, and it's tedious to write and maintain. >>> >> >> >> Isaac, >> >> This belongs on your blog, no joke. I'm going to nag you until you do it. >> >> Rick >> >> >> >>> >>> -- >>> Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ >>> Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/**node/wiki/Mailing-List-* >>> *Posting-Guidelines<https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines> >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "nodejs" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to nod...@googlegroups.com >>> >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> nodejs+un...@**googlegroups.com >>> >>> For more options, visit this group at >>> http://groups.google.com/**group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en<http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en> >>> >> >> >> -- >> Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ >> Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/**node/wiki/Mailing-List-** >> Posting-Guidelines<https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "nodejs" group. >> To post to this group, send email to nod...@googlegroups.com >> >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> nodejs+un...@**googlegroups.com >> >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/**group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en<http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en> >> >> >> -- > Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ > Posting guidelines: > https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "nodejs" group. > To post to this group, send email to nodejs@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > nodejs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en > -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. 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