On Monday, 21 January 2013 at 21:27:54 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
If text editors written in JavaScript have become
commonplace (<sarcasm>Thanks, Google!</sarcasm>), I'm sure
JS-based
interpreters, JS-based codecs and "F"FTs (rather SFTs), and
other
such nonsense aren't far behind.
You probably already saw these, but an x86 emulator that runs
linux, written in javascript:
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/javascript-emulator-lets-linux-run-in-a-browser-tab-20110517/
Forge, a Transport Layer Security implementation written in
javascript:
http://digitalbazaar.com/2010/07/20/javascript-tls-1/
Not quite FFTs or codecs, but not far off. :) I think these are
horribly dumb ideas, just pointing out that they exist.
A roundabout way to say it, but I guess the point I started out
trying to make is this: The popularity of
dynamic/interpreted/sandboxed/etc
languages *is* IMO one of the more significant roadblocks in
the way of D popularity. Silent fire alarms are what's hip, and
here we are
peddling an old-fashioned sounds-and-lights fire alarm. We're
pragmatic instead of cool.
I agree with this generally, but I'll note that those dynamic
languages really aren't that popular. Using TIOBE data, (yes,
yes, I know it's not good data, but I'm going to keep looking
under the streetlight, dammit ;) )
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
Three out of the top four languages are now native compiled, with
C even beating back Java for the top spot recently. D is
probably in the top 7 for compiled languages and the only one to
be designed in the last decade or so (I don't think Pascal and
Ada are coming back ;) ). So I think D is well-positioned to hit
that top spot, or at least that's what I told a friend recently
when I explained why I'm trying to use D. :)
