[gambit-list] JavaScript backend

Blake McBride blake at mcbride.name
Sat Jan 2 08:56:02 EST 2016


Hi,

On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 10:36 PM, James Baker <cycle.code.media at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Aside from Emscripten I'm not aware of any other compilers that target
> asm.js, do you know of any?
>

WebAssembly does now too.  I think, perhaps, that there may be some effort
to use it by hand in some instances as well.



> Web assembly looks quite interesting but its far too experimental to even
> consider for anything at this stage.
>

Perhaps, but that may not be the case for asm.js.


>
> My 9-5 is in a web dev shop and I've never seen any (asm.js / pnacl / etc)
> in the wild aside from a couple of 3d game engines ported to run in
> browser.  Its certainly not part of the typical web development ecosystem.
>

True, but:

A.  Most web apps are so simple (given the current relative speed of modern
JS in the browser) that it doesn't matter.

B.  Most people aren't writing in Scheme and compiling to JS either.
Doing that would be because the app is significantly more sophisticated
than a currently typical app - for example a video game or a full-fledged
business app (like mine - arahant.com ).


> I'm not sure what you consider non-toy like but there are certainly plenty
> of robust options from typed/untyped javascript variants through to
> completely different languages like ocaml, clojurescript, haskell etc.
>

Well, in my case, I am mainly talking about front-end code.  JS is the only
viable choice.  IMO, making such an effort for the back-end only would be a
waste of time, as you said, because of all of the choices.  My point is
that 50% of a real app runs on the front-end, and JS is the only real
choice.  In an effort to minimize the number of technologies, the world is
increasingly using JS on the back-end too.  Gambit already works well on
the back-end.  If it worked well on the front-end to, perhaps Gambit could
offer an alternative solution to the effort to minimize the number of
technologies needed to do both front-end and back-end development.


>
> But as someone who really wants to make use of the Gambit javascript
> backend on an upcoming commercial project I'd certainly appreciate hearing
> of any issues you have encountered so far.
>

I am happy to work closely with someone if that is a possibility.  Is it?

Thanks.

Blake McBride


>
> Cheers,
>
> James
>
>
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