YCombinator hacker news discussion about haxe
Raphael Harmel
Philippe Elsass
--
Raph
To post to this group haxe...@googlegroups.com
http://groups.google.com/group/haxelang?hl=en
Philippe
Michael Cann
raph...@gmail.com
On Monday, March 5, 2012 10:38:56 AM UTC+1, Philippe Elsass wrote:
I agree "code once, deploy everywhere" is a ridiculous & confusing claim for haxe lang - people may stop here and think it can't be any good.
I confirm this was my first reaction when I visited the haxe website. Though I'm very bad at marketing, I can only that the message didn't come over very well to me. I feel like the website is just trying too hard to convince me that Haxe is the panacea, rather than show me what's possible and let me decide by myself.
Actually, I had already seen the Haxe website earlier, but discarded it because I didn't feel confortable with the message conveyed, both with content and design (it was the old design).
Please consider this as positive feedback.
Raph
Raoul Duke
> I confirm this was my first reaction when I visited the haxe website. Though
> I'm very bad at marketing, I can only that the message didn't come over very
> well to me. I feel like the website is just trying too hard to convince me
> that Haxe is the panacea, rather than show me what's possible and let me
> decide by myself.
i further agree. especially given the bugs and misunderstandings that
will always happen. it sounds too much like people who are drinking
too much drugged up kool aid, who are "apologists" for technology, who
won't listen to bug reports since it "works on my machine" etc.
i'm not saying that is how haxe and the community really *is* i'm
saying that is how it looks to anybody who has any experience with
being let down by other cross-platform systems.
Juraj Kirchheim
Is it up to the haXe community to soft-soap the know-it-alls, who
dismiss a tool without actually having seriously used it?
"Write once, deploy everywhere" is haXe's mission statement. Yes,
that's bold, but nobody pretends otherwise. I consider this optimism a
defining aspect of haXe. Now as an outsider one can either choose to
understand that and see how haXe is constantly advancing towards that
ideal, or one can choose to remain nit-picky, ignorant and negative.
I am happy to see people choose the first option, but I frankly
stopped caring for anyone following the latter path, especially if
they start posting unsubstantiated rants on the internet in the hope
that someone pats their back.
This whole discussion is just pointless, because it's entirely based
on esoteric blanket statements.
IMHO, the only thing we really can do to undeniably resolve this, is
to focus our energy on building software that demonstrate how close
haXe is to it's ambitious goal.
Regards,
Juraj
Philippe Elsass
Philippe
Nicolas Cannasse
> I don't agree the discussion is pointless - "write once, deploy
> everywhere" doesn't really mean anything, only reminds java's failed
> promise, and doesn't actually represent haxe.
>
> It's not a mission statement, haxe's mission statement is "one language
> to code all platforms". Some sub-projects like NME could somewhat have
> this pretention for game dev, but haxe isn't quite limited to NME.
>
> Trolls aside, this is all is very confusing for people who aren't inside
> haxe for years already, and it's not ok not to care about that.
Well, we didn't gave it big thoughts so if newcomers comments are
negative I'm perfectly fine to change this subtitle.
Any suggestions ? (it has to be short)
Few random proposals :
"One language, everywhere"
"One language, many platforms"
"Designed to be crossplatfom"
Best,
Nicolas
Benjamin Dasnois
Simon Krajewski
> Any suggestions ? (it has to be short)
"Haxe: Cross platforms"
Short, simple, memorable, not used yet. It also has two meanings that
both fit: to break through the boundaries of platforms and to mix
platforms in the way that Mendel mixed peas [1]. The first meaning
emphasizes haxe's abilities to overcome platform limitations during
development (such as the lack of strict typing for JS or the presence of
Adobe for Flash), the second is from the point of view of a finished
haxe applications that can consist of modules for several target languages.
Simon
[1] http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/M/Mendel.html
Tarwin Stroh-Spijer
Tarwin Stroh-Spijer
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Benjamin Dubois
Philippe Elsass
Rob Fell
On Monday, 5 March 2012 01:38:56 UTC-8, Philippe Elsass wrote:
I agree "code once, deploy everywhere" is a ridiculous & confusing claim for haxe lang - people may stop here and think it can't be any good.
Simon Krajewski
> Hehe yeah, "one language to rule them all" :D
> But "One language, everywhere" is cool.
Why so much focus on the language aspect? A language is just a means to
an end, It's wiser to focus on the outcome. The exciting thing about
haxe is not the language, but the translation.
Simon
ritchie turner
maybe
platform proof
platform future proof
platform insulator
or multi platform but in the context of removing the friction between tiers
tierless development
with the pun on tears
--
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
Justin Donaldson
HaXe: the World Wide Web Whatever
Best,
-Justin
maybe
platform proof
platform future proof
platform insulator
or multi platform but in the context of removing the friction between tiers
tierless development
with the pun on tears
On 03/05/2012 07:24 PM, Nicolas Cannasse wrote:
Le 05/03/2012 23:14, Philippe Elsass a écrit :
I don't agree the discussion is pointless - "write once, deploy
everywhere" doesn't really mean anything, only reminds java's failed
promise, and doesn't actually represent haxe.
It's not a mission statement, haxe's mission statement is "one language
to code all platforms". Some sub-projects like NME could somewhat have
this pretention for game dev, but haxe isn't quite limited to NME.
Trolls aside, this is all is very confusing for people who aren't inside
haxe for years already, and it's not ok not to care about that.
Well, we didn't gave it big thoughts so if newcomers comments are negative I'm perfectly fine to change this subtitle.
Any suggestions ? (it has to be short)
Few random proposals :
"One language, everywhere"
"One language, many platforms"
"Designed to be crossplatfom"
Best,
Nicolas
--
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
James Hofmann
>
> Whereas the subtler "*code once, think beyond*" implies forward planning,
> anywhere" actually works. You like hmmm ...?
marketing, and invites the worst possible comparisons. It's neither a
truthful nor helpful statement, because when you go to make it
portable, even in haXe, you're still going to _want_ to code some of
it twice in order to change the featureset across platforms. And if
it's not portable, of course you're only coding it once! :p
When "selling" the language in conversations with other developers I
tend to use the terms "realistic" and "practical" as in "realistically
portable" or "practical abstractions," which I think are also
applicable to the site's tagline. "A modern, realistic language, with
practical portability" could work since it gets to the heart of what
haXe can offer over most alternatives, and it fits with what the
actual focus of the project is - bells-and-whistles features and cross-
platform libraries tend to run secondary to the core language/
compiler, and should market themselves independently(as, for example,
NME has).
These phrases are usually enough to prompt a more detailed
explanation, and assuage the worries that haXe is another hype-fest
that uses magic pixie dust to "solve" portability, and won't have the
featureset necessary to solve their problems. It lets me mention the
major downside of our ecosystem(immaturity) while still leaving it on
the table as one worth exploring in more depth.
Tony Polinelli
Tony Polinelli
haxe - expand your future
Juraj Kirchheim
<philipp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't agree the discussion is pointless - "write once, deploy everywhere"
> doesn't really mean anything, only reminds java's failed promise, and
> doesn't actually represent haxe.
If it meant nothing, how could one fail at it? ;)
> It's not a mission statement, haxe's mission statement is "one language to
> code all platforms". Some sub-projects like NME could somewhat have this
> pretention for game dev, but haxe isn't quite limited to NME.
One should note that half the new haxe.org landing page is visually
occupied by what's a rather flamboyant representation of WORA.
I don't use NME (at least not yet) but my personal impression is, that
it has given haXe a lot of traction lately and that that gigantic
banner is largely a tribute to that and that haXe is currently rather
strongly marketed through NME to get a piece of the flash exodus.
> Trolls aside, this is all is very confusing for people who aren't inside
> haxe for years already, and it's not ok not to care about that.
I am not proposing not to care about that. I am proposing to put our
code where our mouth is. While we can undoubtedly spend time on
branding haXe this way or that way, branding is not the core problem
in selling haXe. Personally, I find the new website rather cheesy and
don't relate at all to the focus it has, but ultimately, whatever you
do repulses certain people and attracts others. I really doubt,
there's a way to please everyone. Therefore I find assumptions on
whether or not the "new face of haXe" is more "new comer friendly" or
not highly speculative.
Among the things that haXe needs badly are: better documentation,
better tooling and (my main point here) more success stories. The only
reliable measure for the quality of a technology is the software built
using it. Anything else is an educated guess at best.
If you think changing the "slogan" will have any favorable effect,
please do. I wish I could share your optimism on that.
When I attempt to disperse people's skepticism, I show them this:
http://www.rezmason.net/talks/haxe_fatc_2011/demo3.html
It's simple. It works. It proves an intriguing point and sparks their
interest. I really think that that is what we should be looking for,
rather than good words and pretty looks. After all, we're programmers
;)
Regards,
Juraj
Juraj Kirchheim
Aside from the minor pun on lock-free, it's more about one thing: haXe
doesn't dictate a platform, unlike most cross-platform tools.
Or as corollaries: "haXe - transcend platforms" or "haXe - make
software love, not platform war" :D
Juraj Kirchheim
> Aside from the minor pun on lock-free, it's more about one thing: haXe
> doesn't dictate a platform, unlike most cross-platform tools.
There's an incredible irony in that statement :)
Rob Fell
David Peek
Jason O'Neil
David Peek
misprintt
misprintt
Hugh
I quite like the idea that there is no (specific) platform.
I also think it may also be worth considering "open" in the tag -
something like:
haxe - open source, open platform
Or similar:
haxe - open platform programming
Another idea:
haxe - only one language
Which could mean "(The) only one language (you will never need)", Or
"(It is amazing what you can do with) only one language" / "(I can't
believe it's) only one language".
Re: the big graphic on the home page - I'm not a big fan. I think
something more subtle would be better (even in along the same lines).
Another variation may be to have the different devices contain the
text in their "native" fonts - OSs can be quite recognizable by their
default fonts.
Hugh
On Mar 6, 10:39 am, David Peek <David.P...@massiveinteractive.com>
wrote:
Nakayama Muimu
'many different platforms' in 'one language'.
Hence my proposal:
"The language across platforms"
Or emphasizing 'one language' (but not so cool?):
"The lingua franca across platforms"
(I also like "One language, everywhere", though.)
Philippe Elsass
Philippe
Jason O'Neil
I still lend toward a simple thing like "A better language, everywhere", because that's the goal of haxe in haxe.org. Things about "open", "future", etc. are very vague, virtual, promises.
I really like that, because that's the truth. Even if you only target one platform, it is a better way to write for that one platform. This is especially true for Flash, JS and PHP. Probably most others as well...
The "deploy everywhere" line, while haxe does this better than most others, obviously has some negative connotations with a lot of people. If we instead take the focus off their past troubles with "deploy anywhere" and on to the niceness of the haxe language, they might take more interest - in whichever platform is most relevant to them. When it turns out that it can do cross platform really well, that's an added bonus :)
Juan Delgado
"it's not Flash"
That would get you ./ front page. GUARANTEED.
> --
> To post to this group haxe...@googlegroups.com
> http://groups.google.com/group/haxelang?hl=en
--
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http://zarate.tv
http://blog.zarate.tv
Nicolas Cannasse
> I am not proposing not to care about that. I am proposing to put our
> code where our mouth is. While we can undoubtedly spend time on
> branding haXe this way or that way, branding is not the core problem
> in selling haXe.
I don't agree here.
I think that from a technical point of view haXe has already been ahead
a lot of other concurrent solutions for years already.
There's still a lot of things to improve, and there will always be, but
as for haXe being more widespread, I don't think that's an issue with
current features or libraries : it's "just" a bit of marketing, success
stories, buzz.
I'm very glad we have people in the community like haXe NME team that
care about both the code quality AND the way to present it to others
(with websites such has http://www.haxenme.org)
I would be happy if we have much more of that, because that's a very
nice way to help haXe growing :)
PS : making haXe popular is not a goal in itself, I just feel it
deserves it, and I don't like to see bad techs winning against good ones
because they have been better/more marketed
> Among the things that haXe needs badly are: better documentation,
> better tooling and (my main point here) more success stories. The only
> reliable measure for the quality of a technology is the software built
> using it. Anything else is an educated guess at best.
I agree with the documentation thing as well, not that much for the
tooling. As for documentation, even if the API is lacking comments it's
not the main issue here : the main issue is that we lack a complete
tutorial with many different use cases for each platform.
As for success stories, there are already, but they are not that much
showcased as they should be.
Best,
Nicolas
Nicolas Cannasse
> Re: the big graphic on the home page - I'm not a big fan.
People are welcome to contribute other graphics so we can
scroll/randomize them.
Best,
Nicolas
lexa
On Tuesday, March 6, 2012 9:56:31 AM UTC+1, Nicolas Cannasse wrote:
Le 06/03/2012 01:26, Juraj Kirchheim a �crit :
lexa
tom rhodes
Raphael Harmel
Raph
Alex Hoyau
De : Raphael Harmel <raphael...@gmail.com>
À : haxe...@googlegroups.com
Envoyé le : Mardi 6 mars 2012 10h54
Objet : Re: [haxe] Re: YCombinator hacker news discussion about haxe
Juraj Kirchheim
<ncan...@motion-twin.com> wrote:
> Le 06/03/2012 01:26, Juraj Kirchheim a écrit :
>
>> I am not proposing not to care about that. I am proposing to put our
>> code where our mouth is. While we can undoubtedly spend time on
>> branding haXe this way or that way, branding is not the core problem
>> in selling haXe.
>
> I don't agree here.
>
> I think that from a technical point of view haXe has already been ahead a
> lot of other concurrent solutions for years already.
I never claimed anything else ;)
> There's still a lot of things to improve, and there will always be, but as
> for haXe being more widespread, I don't think that's an issue with current
> features or libraries : it's "just" a bit of marketing, success stories,
> buzz.
>
> I'm very glad we have people in the community like haXe NME team that care
> about both the code quality AND the way to present it to others (with
> websites such has http://www.haxenme.org)
>
> I would be happy if we have much more of that, because that's a very nice
> way to help haXe growing :)
I totally agree. However I think the important thing here is not only
that it's "pretty", but that it works and *shows diversity*. For an
outsider, there's a hell of a difference between an eco-system, that
presents itself as a bunch of libs on google code / github / whatever,
or that consists of several major 3rd party efforts, that are polished
even visually.
> PS : making haXe popular is not a goal in itself, I just feel it deserves
> it, and I don't like to see bad techs winning against good ones because they
> have been better/more marketed
I understand that. I also don't mind other technologies being
successful, although they are clearly inferior. The point is, that
making haXe popular has a lot of undeniable advantages for us as a
community.
>> Among the things that haXe needs badly are: better documentation,
>> better tooling and (my main point here) more success stories. The only
>> reliable measure for the quality of a technology is the software built
>> using it. Anything else is an educated guess at best.
>
> I agree with the documentation thing as well, not that much for the tooling.
Ok, this depends on what you see as competition. If you take all the
stuff grown around flash/flex or Java or .NET for example, there's a
lot of room for improvement for haXe. Sure, one can argue that the
need for tooling reflects on shortcomings of the respective language.
But that's not the whole truth either ;)
> As for documentation, even if the API is lacking comments it's not the main
> issue here : the main issue is that we lack a complete tutorial with many
> different use cases for each platform.
Well, there's just too many of them :D
You are absolutely right about the tutorials. Although when I first
came to haXe I found the sparsity of API documentation really scary.
Yes, in fact most of what isn't documented on haxe.org can be found in
the native documentation of the corresponding platform, but not
everybody might be happy with that. In fact I have come to appreciate
the minimalistic commenting style, but maybe in the case of externals
for other platforms at least something like a link to the native
documentation would be great. As a gesture of good will ;)
> As for success stories, there are already, but they are not that much
> showcased as they should be.
Yes, I think they should be showcased a lot better. IIRC, there's a
wiki page somewhere listing haXe projects. But the landing page should
contain at least one highly visible link to it.
Regards,
Juraj
JLM
Here are a few of the ones I would offer...
"HaXe, One language to rule and work with them all" -Justin Mills
"HaXe, opens doors beyond my expertise" -Justin Mills
"HaXe, many languages to many people, the ultimately DRY language to use everywhere" -Justin Mills
Raphael Harmel
Raph
Victor / tokiop
> Haxe - There is no platform.
hehe, nice and fun, like "One language to rule them all" !
The idea that their is no lock-in and that most of this effort is
future-proof is a great stength for haxe. With the same idea :
"haxe - platform-free"
could express the goal of the language, and as a phrase, the result -
"bits of code, platform-freed"
victor
Rob Fell
On Tuesday, 6 March 2012 07:54:03 UTC-8, Raphael Harmel wrote:
I love this idea !
Raph
Joshua Granick
day to sell you on a product you don't care about, need, or want to waste
any time hearing about. Especially when lies are involved, this is the
kind of marketing that makes everyone hate advertising, and hate being
marketed to.
But there's another kind. "Hey, I know you've been struggling to a good
choice for making that new game of yours. Have you heard of NME?"
Sometimes the most helpful you can be is by "selling" something. If you're
solving a real problem, helping someone, making their life better,
happier, more productive ... you're being a blessing to them, not a pest.
In this case, the most truthful and honest you can be is to clearly
identify how this tool can help.
The NME website isn't perfect, but this is some of the idea.
- Making it as easy as possible to answer "What is this?" and "Why do I
want to use it?"
- Making it simple and comfortable to download and run an installer,
which feels nice and at home
- Making it simple to connect with practical samples, templates,
resources or other examples to help you know "What next?"
- Connecting them to a community where they can get help when they don't
know the answer to their "How do I?" or "What is wrong?"
I think that haXe is a broad subject, and as it has been mentioned
earlier, there are strong arguments to use haXe even for one target.
Plenty of people have used haXe for Flash development alone, or the
purpose of haxejs.org is to try and highlight the strengths of using haXe
for the JavaScript target, only. There are great reasons why a JavaScript
developer should be interested in haXe over CoffeeScript, DART or even
just hand-written JS.
For this reason, I think haXe should be seen as a common "DNA" which runs
through a variety of different use-cases. If you are a game developer, and
application developer, a mobile developer, a browser developer, a native
developer, a server developer, a mobile developer... the reasons why you
might find value in the haXe language, tools, libraries and community are
different. That makes it incredibly difficult to make a perfect haxe.org
site, but trying to highlight these various "problem/solution" strengths
about haXe will only help to connect developers with those first questions
they need answered:
"What is this?"
"Why do I want to use it?"
"Which problem does this solve?"
I think the new website is a strong step forward to communicating that
haXe is mature, unique and valuable. There will always be ways we can
improve things, so lets make sure we're coming in a spirit of being
helpful, and not tearing down or discrediting the work of those which has
been (mostly donated!) before us :)
On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:56:31 -0800, Nicolas Cannasse
<ncan...@motion-twin.com> wrote:
--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Joshua Granick
flexible, adaptive... it draws out strengths from each target, rather than
squashing them in favor of some form of lowest common denominator.
It might make sense to even consider graphics which are not connected to
devices. Show a web browser, a terminal, a running NME game...
mipa...@gmail.com
Mark Ford
The way I see it, the tagline for haXe is "(pronounced hex)" - indeed, the haXe Introduction page says so. Really, if you want to improve the branding then there are two things that need to be done...
First the name needs to be changed... might as well call a duck a duck.. call it "Hex" (although my second choice would be to simply call it "Hx").
Secondly, a small group of people should ultimately choose the name / tagline because when you ask 100 people you will get 100 different answers - the outcome will usually be a watered down compromise to keep everyone happy. What it needs is something dynamic, with energy.
But anyway, since we are discussing the tagline, my suggestion would be "Hex - Destination Multiverse" - which gives it a very Matrixy feel. "Destination" because that's what the language is all about ("the target") and "Multiverse" because it doesn't just seek multiple targets but the language itself draws from different disciplines (functional and object orientated).
Now tell me I'm wrong. :-p
Tony Polinelli
--
To post to this group haxe...@googlegroups.com
Mark Ford
Benjamin Dubois
haXe, a strong language to code less.
lex...@yahoo.com
I agree with Tony
And then +1 for
haXe - designed to be crossplatform
Ps: do we agree that there is an uppercase X and lowercase h in haxe communication material?
lexa
Dominic De Lorenzo
cornel
Nicolas Cannasse
Given the number of people (including me) that liked it, I've made the
change for this catch phrase.
Other catch phrases that people liked can be integrated into "big
banners" graphics on the home page if some of you want to contribute any.
Best,
Nicolas
Juraj Kirchheim
(http://haxe.org/com/showcase) as well as the WWX? If we're trying to
market this thing, I think it's important to show, there's a community
of *real* people meeting :D
Nicolas Cannasse
> How about linking the showcase on the landing page
> (http://haxe.org/com/showcase) as well as the WWX? If we're trying to
> market this thing, I think it's important to show, there's a community
> of *real* people meeting :D
This would need a much better presentation than a collection of random
links ;)
Best,
Nicolas
Simon Krajewski
haXe - a thousand catch phrases :P
Well it's better than the original, but meh. "Language" is a boring term
these days and heavily overloaded. "Everywhere" has no focus and some
notion of "all over the place".
Simon
tom rhodes
David Peek
David Peek
Juraj Kirchheim
<ncan...@motion-twin.com> wrote:
> Le 07/03/2012 10:36, Juraj Kirchheim a écrit :
>> How about linking the showcase on the landing page [...]
> This would need a much better presentation than a collection of random links ;)
True, although I think one of the reasons why it's not more than that
is that most people don't even know it's there ;)
Tony Polinelli
Juraj Kirchheim
> from what i remember - it was decided that it should be written as haxe not
> haXe, in a previous thread about a month ago.
>
> If this is correct (its late, and im lazy), can we find-replace, and fix
> this on the haxe.org, it is pretty leet... or moreso, lame with X.
It's not correct:
https://groups.google.com/group/haxelang/browse_thread/thread/27e260f41183ab5b/900e2c930cc7f499
Raphael Harmel
Raph
Nicolas Cannasse
> +1 for adding the WWX link on the main page
>
> Raph
What about sending me a banner for WWX promotion ? :)
Best,
Nicolas
Philippe Elsass
Le 07/03/2012 18:26, Raphael Harmel a écrit :What about sending me a banner for WWX promotion ? :)
+1 for adding the WWX link on the main page
Raph
Best,
Nicolas
Philippe
Mark Ford
Raphael Harmel
What are the needed resolution & format ?
Raph
Le 7 mars 2012 18:39, Nicolas Cannasse <ncan...@motion-twin.com> a écrit :
> Le 07/03/2012 18:26, Raphael Harmel a écrit :
>
>> +1 for adding the WWX link on the main page
>>
>> Raph
>
>
> What about sending me a banner for WWX promotion ? :)
>
>
> Best,
> Nicolas
>
Nicolas Cannasse
> Pol from Silex Labs is OK to do it.
>
> What are the needed resolution& format ?
It will go as a replacement for the current home banner on haxe.org,
which is 958x430 JPG
Best,
Nicolas
Lars Madson
I like the idea of no platform too
HaXe - Beyond the beyond :)
Le 08/03/2012 10:58, Raphael Harmel a écrit :It will go as a replacement for the current home banner on haxe.org, which is 958x430 JPG
Pol from Silex Labs is OK to do it.
What are the needed resolution& format ?
Best,
Nicolas
Lars Madson
That's good.
I really love "one language to rule them all".
Laurent