2012/3/14 C. Scott Ananian <[email protected]> > On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Jameson Quinn <[email protected]>wrote: > >> If you're going to base it on Javascript, at least make it >> Coffeescript-like. I also agree that some basic parallelism primitives >> would be great; it is probably possible to build these into a >> Coffeescript-like dialect using JS under the hood (though they'd probably >> optimize even better if you could implement them natively instead of in >> JS). > > > I think you are underestimating the value of using a standard > widely-deployed language. I love languages as much as the next guy---but > our previous learning environment (Sugar) has had incredible difficulty > getting local support outside the US because it is written in *Python*. > Python is "not a commercially viable language" (not my words) and you > can't even take university classes in Python in many countries (say, > Uruguay) because there is no company behind it and no one who will give you > a "certificate" for having learned it. >
Anyone who can write JS can learn to write CS in 15 minutes, and vice versa. But CS is a friendlier syntax. I understand that that's not good enough. But if JS and CS were fully automatically intraconvertible, a goal which I think is not impossible, I think it would be. > > This is very sad, but the true state of affairs. > > JavaScript is not perfect, but at heart it is a functional object-oriented > language which is pretty darn close to Good Enough. There are huge > benefits to using a language which is supported by training materials all > over the web, university systems outside the US, etc, etc. > > I am open to *very* slight extensions to JavaScript -- OMeta/JS and > quasiquote might squeeze in -- but they have to be weighed against their > costs. Subsets are even more problematic -- once you start subsetting, > then you are throwing away compatibility with all the wealth of JavaScript > libraries out there, in addition to confusing potential contributors who > are trying to type in examples they found in some book. > --scott > > -- > ( http://cscott.net ) >
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