7 ms·

Try Haxe

180 points by clemos 14y ago

lucian1900 14y ago
I'm torn on haxe. It has a few nice features (macros!) and has many, many targets. But on the other hand, its syntax and some of its semantics are Java/C++-inspired, whereas something closer to its ML roots would've been so much better. It might still beat Java for writing Android apps.
- chipsy 14y ago
  The syntax is curly-brace, and on a surface level closest to AS3, but the underlying design borrows a lot from Pascal in terms of minimalism(something which Nicolas has mentioned once or twice): The types are based on JS without truthy or falsy values; comparison is required to get boolean values. Like Coffeescript, while+iterators are used instead of C-style for loops. (no "do while" blocks either) Case statements don't fall through. These little changes(plus a few others) help bring in a lot of the enforced-cleanliness that you'd get with a bigger syntax change, it just "looks" curly-brace. One that I miss is :=, since I have run into the ==/= typo occasionally(it just occurs in much more limited situations). No-truthiness is particularly interesting since you only really notice it's there when you try to port C or JS code.
clemos 14y ago
demos : Flash API to SWF or JS (nme/jeash): http://try.haxe.org/#655c1 http://try.haxe.org/#655c1 http://try.haxe.org/#E4001 http://try.haxe.org/#E4001 Flash with custom shaders (hxsl): http://try.haxe.org/#93bE1 http://try.haxe.org/#93bE1 Flash + away3d: http://try.haxe.org/#9F075 http://try.haxe.org/#9F075
- novalis 14y ago
  Impressive stuff clemos. Thanks for sharing.
clemos 14y ago
... and the editor has autocompletion on dot :)
- Liongadev 14y ago
  does not work for me
  - mahmud 14y ago
    tell them what browser you're using and what version.
joneil 14y ago
I'm guessing the server is under some load at the moment as it's running pretty slow. But very cool demo page, been using it the last few days. I'm impressed with how small Haxe's JS output has gotten lately. Clément hacked this together as a weekend project. Source code is here for those interested: https://github.com/clemos/try-haxe https://github.com/clemos/try-haxe Well done :)
zserge 14y ago
Haxe is a nice language, though I don't like it's verbosity (hey, it's almost like Java!). Maybe I'm too much spoilt with coffeescript, ruby, python and other syntax-sugary languages.
- conanite 14y ago
  Hey, it has macros! But it doesn't compile to coffeescript ... yet ... http://haxe.org/manual/macros http://haxe.org/manual/macros
  - HoLyVieR 14y ago
    What's the point of compiling to CoffeeScript when it compiles to JavaScript ?
    - prezjordan 14y ago
      Because trendy technologies.
      - Avshalom 14y ago
        Coffeescript is webscale.
    - simonbrown 14y ago
      I guess it could be useful if you wanted to switch from HAXE to Coffeescript.
    - clemos 14y ago
      It could be fun to have a CoffeeScript to Haxe converter, though.
      - tbergeron 14y ago
        Infinite loop of compilation! Haha
  - 14y ago
reubensutton 14y ago
In the example in that landing page, there appears to be if statements depending on platform, is this something that's often necessary when using Haxe, or only when you want to perform a specific action for that target language?
- deltaluca 14y ago
  Only when you want to perform specific actions (Or are writing a cross-platform lib which may need itself to perform platform specific actions) In the usual case of using already written cross-platform libs you'd rarely need to do this.
- clemos 14y ago
  http://haxe.org/ref/conditionals http://haxe.org/ref/conditionals Most standard classes and methods (String, Array, Hash, etc), and a lot of third party libraries are completely cross-platform, so you don't need conditional compilation. Usually you use conditional compilation either for very low-level per-platform operations / optimizations, or to switch, say, between client code and server code, like here for instance: https://github.com/clemos/try-haxe/blob/master/src/App.hx https://github.com/clemos/try-haxe/blob/master/src/App.hx
barik 14y ago
My initial gut reaction to Haxe from the homepage alone, was "Gah, this language is ugly!'. Then I immediately realized that this ugliness was from the fact that the Source example isn't using a monospaced font. It's sort of amazing that, at least for me, using a proportional font just makes things "look wrong", even though everything is syntactically correct.
- clemos 14y ago
  Ok, ok, I switched back to monospace...
  - dfc 14y ago
    Out of curiosity do you normally write code in a proportional font?
    - clemos 14y ago
      Not usually, but I wanted the app to look a bit less "hardcore techie" than the rest of the Haxe evangelism material :)
      - jacobolus 14y ago
        The little code box on the front page need more space between lines. Currently they’re right on top of each-other.
- VMG 14y ago
  Also in the current color scheme, the preprocessor directives are dark red against a dark blue background. Not exactly pleasing.
  - clemos 14y ago
    I put a lighter theme, and increased line spacing a bit
st3fan 14y ago
The cross-platform thing is a bold claim. How about a more complete example than that 5 line hello world program to show us how that would work?
- clemos 14y ago
  http://try.haxe.org/#655c1 http://try.haxe.org/#655c1 You can compile this example to both Flash and JS online. If you install Haxe and NME (http://haxenme.org http://haxenme.org), you can also compile it to iOS, Android, WebOS, BlackBerry, as well as desktop Mac, Windows and Linux binaries. And these are only the possibilites offered by NME, which is basically a Haxe-based Flash API implementation.
- wensing 14y ago
  The new release of the Stormpulse mapping client is written in haxe with a flash deployment on the web and an iOS app in the app store. It is non-trivial. ;)
- singmajesty 14y ago
  Here is a good example: http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/04/12/html5-pirate-pig-sample/ http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/04/12/html5-pirate-pi... It's a Bejeweled clone that has been published in the Amazon Appstore, Google Play, BlackBerry App World, the webOS App Catalog and also compiles for iOS, Flash, Windows, Mac, Linux and HTML5
yxhuvud 14y ago
You lost me at 'public static function main.'
- boofar 14y ago
  Functions are public by default. You could leave that out. The main function has to be static and will serve as the entrance point of the program, not the class. So this might just look like too much when in fact this is just a very small code sample. Did I address some of your concerns, or did I miss the point entirely? Just curious.
  - jonpacker 14y ago
    I think his comment could be refrased as "This language looks like Java"
    - clemos 14y ago
      Well at least it doesn't look like PHP...
    - clemos 14y ago
      Also, IMHO the fact that Haxe looks familiar to people coming from Javascript, ActionScript, or Java is a plus.
      - WiseWeasel 14y ago
        Agreed. I'd wager there are substantially more people learning JavaScript these days than PHP, not that PHP looks too foreign, relatively speaking.
  - clemos 14y ago
    Actually functions are private by default. "static function main()" seems to work as an entrance point, though, which makes sense somehow...
    - 14y ago
rufugee 14y ago
Haxe sounds too good to be true. Why would anyone use any of the other game engines out there which are targeted towards the mobile world if they could use Haxe? I see many half-donejavascript frameworks and fully-baked lua frameworks...what do they provide that Haxe doesn't? Can anyone who has done significant Haxe work comment to some of the benefits and drawbacks? I ask as someone in search of a gaming engine which can target iOS and Android, so this is very interesting to me. Thanks.
- airfoil 14y ago
  I tried a bunch of different game engines, toolkits, frameworks, languages, etc. for the game I'm working on and the thing that sold me on Haxe was NME. I was able to build for Mac and Flash without changing my code. I simply specified a different target platform at the command line. I haven't built for mobile yet, but I suspect there won't be very many changes to my code when I do. Also, the Haxe community is full of great hackers and incredibly helpful.
- ido 14y ago
  I used haxe for all my games(e.g. http://cardinalquest.com/ http://cardinalquest.com/) for over a year now & it's working quite well. There are some annoying differences between the different targets but it's >99% the same and you can work around the differences.
  - joering2 14y ago
    Cardinal Quest looks very cool. Could you share some light from business perspective. Profits? Thanks.
    - ido 14y ago
      Revenue is mid 5 figure so far from desktop and flash versions, the ios & android version were just released but I'm hoping to break into 6 figures altogether across the game's total lifespan.
      - 14y ago
misuba 14y ago
So, what's a good resource for _learning_ Haxe as opposed to trying it?
- novalis 14y ago
  Hello misuba, here are some that I have found to be very handy for some projects I have worked on. Hope they are a good start for you, or at least will intice your curiosity. http://www.haxenme.org/documentation/examples/tutorials/ http://www.haxenme.org/documentation/examples/tutorials/ http://haxe.org/doc http://haxe.org/doc http://www.haxejs.org/ http://www.haxejs.org/ http://www.haxenode.org/ http://www.haxenode.org/ http://mikecann.co.uk/personal-project/more-html5-haxe-speed-tests/ http://mikecann.co.uk/personal-project/more-html5-haxe-speed... If you do have a go, I recommend HaxeNME for it is a framework that will install all you need for Haxe to just "work" straight up and it also adds some cool stuff like mobile compilation targets (webos, ios, android) and HTML5. You will have to pick a IDE, people go for FlashDevelop and Mono a lot now, but do read through the Haxe or HaxeNME site setup sections for full list. There are lots of add-ons for a lot of IDE's. For install, start here: http://www.haxenme.org/documentation/setup/ http://www.haxenme.org/documentation/setup/
- dsirijus 14y ago
  For ViMists, Marc Webber has a full blown stack of HaXe stuff. https://github.com/MarcWeber https://github.com/MarcWeber
Fargren 14y ago
Can I use my .swc files in a Haxe project? I love the concept, but losing all my libraries is harsh.
- clemos 14y ago
  Given that a .swc is basically a zipped .swf, this currently depends on runtimes: - Haxe/Flash supports embedding .swf libraries : http://haxe.org/manual/swc http://haxe.org/manual/swc - NME/C++ (Android, iOS, ...) has partial support for .swf libraries : http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/02/08/quick-notes-on-the-swf-library-for-nme/ http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/02/08/quick-notes-on-... - NME/HTML5 doesn't seem to support .swf right now, but I think it's being worked out. Then you have third party tools such as Flump or Flambe to help you: https://github.com/threerings/flump https://github.com/threerings/flump https://github.com/aduros/flambe https://github.com/aduros/flambe
wiradikusuma 14y ago
does anyone know any comparison with similar offerings ("cross native") e.g. Appcelerator?
- clemos 14y ago
  NME is particularily good in building "Flash-like" applications, so mainly games. I think Appcelerator is more adapted to applications that want to use native UIs elements (menus, buttons, layouts, etc). Then you can still write an Appcelerator app using Haxe :) https://github.com/skial/haXe-titanium-desktop https://github.com/skial/haXe-titanium-desktop I don't know how/if it's possible to mix both, for example embed a NME app inside an Appcelerator app (besides using UI.WebView and embed it as HTML...)
tbergeron 14y ago
Nope. Stop fragmenting languages, we don't need another one except if it's revolutionary. There's some very good principles like the fact that it can compile to many languages but like CoffeeScript I just don't see the point. Want to do some c++ why not using it? Want to do some JavaScript? Then use JavaScript. There is just too much on the table when it comes to language compilation, I mean if the compiler itself has a problem with your code? It's a bug between what you built and its runtime: what can you do about it? A client is waiting for you, you've got no time to lose contacting the compiler's developers, you're just fucked. Don't get me wrong, I like to play with these languages but that is what they are: toys. The hard reality is that browsers only support n amount of languages and we are stuck using them.
- dsirijus 14y ago
  I've had features added to HaXe libs in no time, just by nudging people in the right direction. HaXe community is very powerful.
- b2d 14y ago
  This is just a bunch of unverified blanket statements and what-ifs. From my own experience, I can tell they don't apply to Haxe. Also, Haxe is revolutionary, but to understand that, you'd have to actually use it in production.
pizzaman 14y ago
sounds great, but i'm afraid that this is the reality: http://haxe.org/forum/thread/2988 http://haxe.org/forum/thread/2988
- clemos 14y ago
  So ?
jetz 14y ago
I've searched a little while and found that it has no support for camera (or sensors) in mobile devices. It looks like HAXE/NME is heavily geared towards game development.
justinfront 14y ago
tbergeron HaXe is revolutionary, people who really try it always seem to stay with it, they just have to get past the ask lets of questions and actually try some code and stop being negative and putting it in the less able solutions pile. If you want to waste days coding a game in pure objectiveC and then converting it to java just to target two phones then good luck to you! And if you code something in one language it should just be a case of switching some target specific libraries and all your work now works in another target, not recoding in another language style. HaXe is revolutionary because it in achieving what other solutions promise but normally fall short on providing - cross platform cross language, code that is designed to enable not fragment. So try it rather than assume! You don't have show stopper issues with the compiler ( it outperforms flex compiler on flash target ). Any minor issues are often resolved within hours of reporting, unless they are language design decisions rather than bugs. Pizzaman The forum is not well used as most users use the googlegroup 'haxelang'. In terms of frameworks like flex, haxe for flash target does not support flex well, it can be made to work, but largely the problem is because flex is not really just actionscript but has some adobe secrets/hacks etc.. that is why it has not been ported to a cross platform solution yet, need some better engineering decisions although someone I think is working on it. In terms of other frameworks for components there are some but they could be better, try aswing, feel free to chat on IRC if you have problems getting a particular component framework running. Generally haxe is sort of tool that you can build from scratch your visual interface stuff, or if your using js you can mix it up with native libraries. Jetz You can add any support for mobile camera's or video you want it interfaces easily with c++/c and there is java support and there is openframework support try this site http://blog.onthewings.net/ http://blog.onthewings.net/. Haxe is not really a game only language but it excels at allowing users to create visual stuff but still do complex game mechanics, and a lot of users enjoy doing games. It works well in solving the issues of having to mix technologies, being normally a more sane programming language than the target but also mixing well, so you can mix haxe php, haxe js and haxe flash ( http://haxe.org/doc/remoting http://haxe.org/doc/remoting ), or use NME library to hit all the phones and have a web version in flash for users to try online.
xyzzyb 14y ago
I did try Haxe, back in 2010 when I used it to write a silly little domino trail. It was fine for what it does, but I wasn't particularly impressed. It was interesting to be able to write code in one language then compile it to other destinations but it seemed to me that targeting specific domains and learning all their ins and outs made more sense.
egb 14y ago
Does anybody know how you debug with haxe/nme? I see no mention of it, which leads me to believe it's not really supported, which is somewhat understandable given that's it being compiled from haxe code into the various target languages.
- ketchupy 14y ago
  You can use FlashDevelop's debugger when targeting Flash.
vamed 14y ago
d

180 points by clemos 14y ago

lucian1900 14y ago

I'm torn on haxe. It has a few nice features (macros!) and has many, many targets. But on the other hand, its syntax and some of its semantics are Java/C++-inspired, whereas something closer to its ML roots would've been so much better. It might still beat Java for writing Android apps.

chipsy 14y ago
The syntax is curly-brace, and on a surface level closest to AS3, but the underlying design borrows a lot from Pascal in terms of minimalism(something which Nicolas has mentioned once or twice): The types are based on JS without truthy or falsy values; comparison is required to get boolean values. Like Coffeescript, while+iterators are used instead of C-style for loops. (no "do while" blocks either) Case statements don't fall through. These little changes(plus a few others) help bring in a lot of the enforced-cleanliness that you'd get with a bigger syntax change, it just "looks" curly-brace. One that I miss is :=, since I have run into the ==/= typo occasionally(it just occurs in much more limited situations). No-truthiness is particularly interesting since you only really notice it's there when you try to port C or JS code.

clemos 14y ago

demos : Flash API to SWF or JS (nme/jeash): http://try.haxe.org/#655c1 http://try.haxe.org/#655c1 http://try.haxe.org/#E4001 http://try.haxe.org/#E4001 Flash with custom shaders (hxsl): http://try.haxe.org/#93bE1 http://try.haxe.org/#93bE1 Flash + away3d: http://try.haxe.org/#9F075 http://try.haxe.org/#9F075

novalis 14y ago
Impressive stuff clemos. Thanks for sharing.

clemos 14y ago

... and the editor has autocompletion on dot :)

Liongadev 14y ago
does not work for me
- mahmud 14y ago
  tell them what browser you're using and what version.

joneil 14y ago

I'm guessing the server is under some load at the moment as it's running pretty slow. But very cool demo page, been using it the last few days. I'm impressed with how small Haxe's JS output has gotten lately. Clément hacked this together as a weekend project. Source code is here for those interested: https://github.com/clemos/try-haxe https://github.com/clemos/try-haxe Well done :)

zserge 14y ago

Haxe is a nice language, though I don't like it's verbosity (hey, it's almost like Java!). Maybe I'm too much spoilt with coffeescript, ruby, python and other syntax-sugary languages.

conanite 14y ago
Hey, it has macros! But it doesn't compile to coffeescript ... yet ... http://haxe.org/manual/macros http://haxe.org/manual/macros
- HoLyVieR 14y ago
  What's the point of compiling to CoffeeScript when it compiles to JavaScript ?
  - prezjordan 14y ago
    Because trendy technologies.
    - Avshalom 14y ago
      Coffeescript is webscale.
  - simonbrown 14y ago
    I guess it could be useful if you wanted to switch from HAXE to Coffeescript.
  - clemos 14y ago
    It could be fun to have a CoffeeScript to Haxe converter, though.
    - tbergeron 14y ago
      Infinite loop of compilation! Haha
- 14y ago

reubensutton 14y ago

In the example in that landing page, there appears to be if statements depending on platform, is this something that's often necessary when using Haxe, or only when you want to perform a specific action for that target language?

deltaluca 14y ago
Only when you want to perform specific actions (Or are writing a cross-platform lib which may need itself to perform platform specific actions) In the usual case of using already written cross-platform libs you'd rarely need to do this.
clemos 14y ago
http://haxe.org/ref/conditionals http://haxe.org/ref/conditionals Most standard classes and methods (String, Array, Hash, etc), and a lot of third party libraries are completely cross-platform, so you don't need conditional compilation. Usually you use conditional compilation either for very low-level per-platform operations / optimizations, or to switch, say, between client code and server code, like here for instance: https://github.com/clemos/try-haxe/blob/master/src/App.hx https://github.com/clemos/try-haxe/blob/master/src/App.hx

barik 14y ago

My initial gut reaction to Haxe from the homepage alone, was "Gah, this language is ugly!'. Then I immediately realized that this ugliness was from the fact that the Source example isn't using a monospaced font. It's sort of amazing that, at least for me, using a proportional font just makes things "look wrong", even though everything is syntactically correct.

clemos 14y ago
Ok, ok, I switched back to monospace...
- dfc 14y ago
  Out of curiosity do you normally write code in a proportional font?
  - clemos 14y ago
    Not usually, but I wanted the app to look a bit less "hardcore techie" than the rest of the Haxe evangelism material :)
    - jacobolus 14y ago
      The little code box on the front page need more space between lines. Currently they’re right on top of each-other.
VMG 14y ago
Also in the current color scheme, the preprocessor directives are dark red against a dark blue background. Not exactly pleasing.
- clemos 14y ago
  I put a lighter theme, and increased line spacing a bit

st3fan 14y ago

The cross-platform thing is a bold claim. How about a more complete example than that 5 line hello world program to show us how that would work?

clemos 14y ago
http://try.haxe.org/#655c1 http://try.haxe.org/#655c1 You can compile this example to both Flash and JS online. If you install Haxe and NME (http://haxenme.org http://haxenme.org), you can also compile it to iOS, Android, WebOS, BlackBerry, as well as desktop Mac, Windows and Linux binaries. And these are only the possibilites offered by NME, which is basically a Haxe-based Flash API implementation.
wensing 14y ago
The new release of the Stormpulse mapping client is written in haxe with a flash deployment on the web and an iOS app in the app store. It is non-trivial. ;)
singmajesty 14y ago
Here is a good example: http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/04/12/html5-pirate-pig-sample/ http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/04/12/html5-pirate-pi... It's a Bejeweled clone that has been published in the Amazon Appstore, Google Play, BlackBerry App World, the webOS App Catalog and also compiles for iOS, Flash, Windows, Mac, Linux and HTML5

yxhuvud 14y ago

You lost me at 'public static function main.'

boofar 14y ago
Functions are public by default. You could leave that out. The main function has to be static and will serve as the entrance point of the program, not the class. So this might just look like too much when in fact this is just a very small code sample. Did I address some of your concerns, or did I miss the point entirely? Just curious.
- jonpacker 14y ago
  I think his comment could be refrased as "This language looks like Java"
  - clemos 14y ago
    Well at least it doesn't look like PHP...
  - clemos 14y ago
    Also, IMHO the fact that Haxe looks familiar to people coming from Javascript, ActionScript, or Java is a plus.
    - WiseWeasel 14y ago
      Agreed. I'd wager there are substantially more people learning JavaScript these days than PHP, not that PHP looks too foreign, relatively speaking.
- clemos 14y ago
  Actually functions are private by default. "static function main()" seems to work as an entrance point, though, which makes sense somehow...
  - 14y ago

rufugee 14y ago

Haxe sounds too good to be true. Why would anyone use any of the other game engines out there which are targeted towards the mobile world if they could use Haxe? I see many half-donejavascript frameworks and fully-baked lua frameworks...what do they provide that Haxe doesn't? Can anyone who has done significant Haxe work comment to some of the benefits and drawbacks? I ask as someone in search of a gaming engine which can target iOS and Android, so this is very interesting to me. Thanks.

airfoil 14y ago
I tried a bunch of different game engines, toolkits, frameworks, languages, etc. for the game I'm working on and the thing that sold me on Haxe was NME. I was able to build for Mac and Flash without changing my code. I simply specified a different target platform at the command line. I haven't built for mobile yet, but I suspect there won't be very many changes to my code when I do. Also, the Haxe community is full of great hackers and incredibly helpful.
ido 14y ago
I used haxe for all my games(e.g. http://cardinalquest.com/ http://cardinalquest.com/) for over a year now & it's working quite well. There are some annoying differences between the different targets but it's >99% the same and you can work around the differences.
- joering2 14y ago
  Cardinal Quest looks very cool. Could you share some light from business perspective. Profits? Thanks.
  - ido 14y ago
    Revenue is mid 5 figure so far from desktop and flash versions, the ios & android version were just released but I'm hoping to break into 6 figures altogether across the game's total lifespan.
    - 14y ago

misuba 14y ago

So, what's a good resource for _learning_ Haxe as opposed to trying it?

novalis 14y ago
Hello misuba, here are some that I have found to be very handy for some projects I have worked on. Hope they are a good start for you, or at least will intice your curiosity. http://www.haxenme.org/documentation/examples/tutorials/ http://www.haxenme.org/documentation/examples/tutorials/ http://haxe.org/doc http://haxe.org/doc http://www.haxejs.org/ http://www.haxejs.org/ http://www.haxenode.org/ http://www.haxenode.org/ http://mikecann.co.uk/personal-project/more-html5-haxe-speed-tests/ http://mikecann.co.uk/personal-project/more-html5-haxe-speed... If you do have a go, I recommend HaxeNME for it is a framework that will install all you need for Haxe to just "work" straight up and it also adds some cool stuff like mobile compilation targets (webos, ios, android) and HTML5. You will have to pick a IDE, people go for FlashDevelop and Mono a lot now, but do read through the Haxe or HaxeNME site setup sections for full list. There are lots of add-ons for a lot of IDE's. For install, start here: http://www.haxenme.org/documentation/setup/ http://www.haxenme.org/documentation/setup/
dsirijus 14y ago
For ViMists, Marc Webber has a full blown stack of HaXe stuff. https://github.com/MarcWeber https://github.com/MarcWeber

Fargren 14y ago

Can I use my .swc files in a Haxe project? I love the concept, but losing all my libraries is harsh.

clemos 14y ago
Given that a .swc is basically a zipped .swf, this currently depends on runtimes: - Haxe/Flash supports embedding .swf libraries : http://haxe.org/manual/swc http://haxe.org/manual/swc - NME/C++ (Android, iOS, ...) has partial support for .swf libraries : http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/02/08/quick-notes-on-the-swf-library-for-nme/ http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/02/08/quick-notes-on-... - NME/HTML5 doesn't seem to support .swf right now, but I think it's being worked out. Then you have third party tools such as Flump or Flambe to help you: https://github.com/threerings/flump https://github.com/threerings/flump https://github.com/aduros/flambe https://github.com/aduros/flambe

wiradikusuma 14y ago

does anyone know any comparison with similar offerings ("cross native") e.g. Appcelerator?

clemos 14y ago
NME is particularily good in building "Flash-like" applications, so mainly games. I think Appcelerator is more adapted to applications that want to use native UIs elements (menus, buttons, layouts, etc). Then you can still write an Appcelerator app using Haxe :) https://github.com/skial/haXe-titanium-desktop https://github.com/skial/haXe-titanium-desktop I don't know how/if it's possible to mix both, for example embed a NME app inside an Appcelerator app (besides using UI.WebView and embed it as HTML...)

tbergeron 14y ago

Nope. Stop fragmenting languages, we don't need another one except if it's revolutionary. There's some very good principles like the fact that it can compile to many languages but like CoffeeScript I just don't see the point. Want to do some c++ why not using it? Want to do some JavaScript? Then use JavaScript. There is just too much on the table when it comes to language compilation, I mean if the compiler itself has a problem with your code? It's a bug between what you built and its runtime: what can you do about it? A client is waiting for you, you've got no time to lose contacting the compiler's developers, you're just fucked. Don't get me wrong, I like to play with these languages but that is what they are: toys. The hard reality is that browsers only support n amount of languages and we are stuck using them.

dsirijus 14y ago
I've had features added to HaXe libs in no time, just by nudging people in the right direction. HaXe community is very powerful.
b2d 14y ago
This is just a bunch of unverified blanket statements and what-ifs. From my own experience, I can tell they don't apply to Haxe. Also, Haxe is revolutionary, but to understand that, you'd have to actually use it in production.

pizzaman 14y ago

sounds great, but i'm afraid that this is the reality: http://haxe.org/forum/thread/2988 http://haxe.org/forum/thread/2988

clemos 14y ago
So ?

jetz 14y ago

I've searched a little while and found that it has no support for camera (or sensors) in mobile devices. It looks like HAXE/NME is heavily geared towards game development.

justinfront 14y ago

tbergeron HaXe is revolutionary, people who really try it always seem to stay with it, they just have to get past the ask lets of questions and actually try some code and stop being negative and putting it in the less able solutions pile. If you want to waste days coding a game in pure objectiveC and then converting it to java just to target two phones then good luck to you! And if you code something in one language it should just be a case of switching some target specific libraries and all your work now works in another target, not recoding in another language style. HaXe is revolutionary because it in achieving what other solutions promise but normally fall short on providing - cross platform cross language, code that is designed to enable not fragment. So try it rather than assume! You don't have show stopper issues with the compiler ( it outperforms flex compiler on flash target ). Any minor issues are often resolved within hours of reporting, unless they are language design decisions rather than bugs. Pizzaman The forum is not well used as most users use the googlegroup 'haxelang'. In terms of frameworks like flex, haxe for flash target does not support flex well, it can be made to work, but largely the problem is because flex is not really just actionscript but has some adobe secrets/hacks etc.. that is why it has not been ported to a cross platform solution yet, need some better engineering decisions although someone I think is working on it. In terms of other frameworks for components there are some but they could be better, try aswing, feel free to chat on IRC if you have problems getting a particular component framework running. Generally haxe is sort of tool that you can build from scratch your visual interface stuff, or if your using js you can mix it up with native libraries. Jetz You can add any support for mobile camera's or video you want it interfaces easily with c++/c and there is java support and there is openframework support try this site http://blog.onthewings.net/ http://blog.onthewings.net/. Haxe is not really a game only language but it excels at allowing users to create visual stuff but still do complex game mechanics, and a lot of users enjoy doing games. It works well in solving the issues of having to mix technologies, being normally a more sane programming language than the target but also mixing well, so you can mix haxe php, haxe js and haxe flash ( http://haxe.org/doc/remoting http://haxe.org/doc/remoting ), or use NME library to hit all the phones and have a web version in flash for users to try online.

xyzzyb 14y ago

I did try Haxe, back in 2010 when I used it to write a silly little domino trail. It was fine for what it does, but I wasn't particularly impressed. It was interesting to be able to write code in one language then compile it to other destinations but it seemed to me that targeting specific domains and learning all their ins and outs made more sense.

egb 14y ago

Does anybody know how you debug with haxe/nme? I see no mention of it, which leads me to believe it's not really supported, which is somewhat understandable given that's it being compiled from haxe code into the various target languages.

ketchupy 14y ago
You can use FlashDevelop's debugger when targeting Flash.

vamed 14y ago