This is a game changer. I've used it over the last few 3 or 4 months, and it is really stable and usable. I am betting an entire (although academic) project on it: <a href="http://proofpeer.net" rel="nofollow">http://proofpeer.net</a> (note that Clojure is mentioned there as a language of choice, but I switched to Scala since then as Scala provides a similar level of conciseness with all the goodies of a powerful static type system with support for both Java and Javascript).
I remember how years ago I complained about how Javascript was the only language aviable for the web.<p>Nowadays you can even run sliced bread on Javascript... though, wouldn't it be better to focus on developing languages on top of asm.js or PNacl so we wouldn't rely on JS?
Fun demos using Scala.js:<p><a href="http://lihaoyi.github.io/scala-js-games/" rel="nofollow">http://lihaoyi.github.io/scala-js-games/</a>
<a href="http://lihaoyi.github.io/scala-js-game-2/" rel="nofollow">http://lihaoyi.github.io/scala-js-game-2/</a><p>The second one has some performance issues, and bugs out initially when first opened in FF (need to refresh before it works properly) but otherwise it's pretty fun =)
For those who haven't heard about it. The initial presentation:
<a href="http://www.parleys.com/play/51c380bfe4b0ed8770356866/" rel="nofollow">http://www.parleys.com/play/51c380bfe4b0ed8770356866/</a>
As someone who doesn't really know anything about scala, why is this a cool thing?<p>While such an early release is definitely aimed at scala enthusiast, I'd still like a sales pitch for the rest of us.
I'm finding a sort of corollary of JavaScript being a byte-code equivalent for the web, what with everything being translated to compilation in js syntax.<p>Maybe the browsers need to move beyond JavaScript interpretation, and think about things more like a VM to allow actual scala/java/c#/ruby/python/erlang/lua/something-completely-new/etc. to be executed in context.<p>Or, maybe a more forward-thinking approach would be to consider "docker in the browser" -- containers that run in execution. Probably a performance nightmare, but I'm thinking of an interesting compilation of bits -- CMS done well in Ruby, an e-commerce cart in Python, data charts in Erlang, and enterprise-based workflows in Java -- all working together, client-side.<p>Disclaimer: it's a holiday and I'm enjoying a nice cabernet sauvignon. Thought clarity and consistency may not necessarily be present at this point in time.
I wonder how complicated it is to parse JSON in Scala.js. It's pretty involved in regular Scala and incredibly easy in JavaScript, so what's it like in Scala.js?
Too bad that there is not more effort on Scala.NET instead of this. Lots of people are comfortable with writing Javascript in the browser so all of these compilers emitting Javascript end up being little more than a technology demo. But Scala on the .NET vm would really fill a gap.
Fun stuff, but again, doesn't come with any tools. Microsoft Typescript is much better on that matter.<p>What javascript universe needs right now is not some more of syntactic sugar clusterfuck followed by debugging nightmare, but real tools, static code analysis. I don't want to waste my precious time dealing with closure compiler+scala something combo.
It's fun from programmers POV, but still it won't make me pay my bills!<p>reality check, please