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This is a normal post very impressive
...buuuuuuut I'm sure I'm not the only one not to get the whole HTML5 thing. I mean, why would I want to use a cobbled together piece of shite like javascript to write something meaningful? loosely typed? no true OO? urgh, no ta. It would be like writing Doom3 in Cobol.

Also, that website/game had just bumped all my fans on full power... html5 performance really does take the biscuit and there's *far* better solutions out there. And this is a medium power modern pc.

Sorry, rant over, the game is a very impressive tech demo though ;o)
 (I helped save b3ta! wideeye slightly pickled, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 16:37, Reply)
This is a normal post I agree with what your saying about js
I think the tech will improve over time though, and maybe better scripting solutions than js will surface.... maybe
 (I helped save b3ta! Fadgebadger Sweaty sumo wanks for everyone!, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 16:46, Reply)
This is a normal post The more I get in to JS, the more beautiful I find it
A chap I used to work with often told me I should learn LISP, said I'd find it very Zen. I think I know what he means now.

Javascript isn't meant to be object oriented, but it helps if you a) write in a semi object-oriented way and b) forget anything you ever knew about C++, Java, Python...

(Saying that, I'm stuck in hell today, debugging and extending some JS I wrote 6 months ago, it may as well have been written by a gibbon using just his left elbow)
 (MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 16:46, Reply)
This is a normal post funnily enough I also code using my elbows
...that may explain quite a lot
 (I helped save b3ta! wideeye slightly pickled, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 16:50, Reply)
This is a normal post And that's why JS is shit
For those exact reasons, lack of encapsulation means it's a maintenance clusterfuck. Write once, run away and try and forget it Many.

Such a shame browsers don't have a propah langwidge
 (I helped save b3ta! simbosan is too tired, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 18:14, Reply)
This is a normal post Ahem
Closures
 (spunkyD, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 19:00, Reply)
This is a normal post But closures are just syntactic sugar, really.

(Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 20:11, Reply)
This is a normal post Syntactic sugar that good developers use to avoid a maintenance clusterfuck
and because it's nice to do things well
 (spunkyD, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 20:16, Reply)
This is a normal post Nah. They just help you write less code.
It doesn't make any real difference to your maintenance. Once you need to do anything complex in the closure, you're better of splitting it out into a proper function anyway.

JavaScript can be used well, of course it can; but it's a lot like C or C++: it takes a lot of discipline to use well. And the end result will still perform like a dog's breakfast.
 (Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 20:28, Reply)
This is a normal post They are far from syntactic sugar.
They let you nest all kinds of code, callback and events, yet still get back out to a class based scope for sanity/maintainability.
 (MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:35, Reply)
This is a normal post What makes you think this can't be done any other way?
(And sensibly, not doing crazily complicated stuff.)
 (Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:38, Reply)
This is a normal post Also, there are always several ways of doing something in any language
The trick to maintainability is picking the right way. Hindsight's always a bit of a bugger here...
 (MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 22:23, Reply)
This is a normal post In many languages, there are often several sensible ways of doing something.
Not necessarily any single *right* way.
 (Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Wed 22 Aug 2012, 1:42, Reply)
This is a normal post Closures are a memory/performance nightmare

(I helped save b3ta! simbosan is too tired, Wed 22 Aug 2012, 21:34, Reply)
This is a normal post well, no, 6 months ago, i was shit at js
But thought i was good. Now i'm ok and think i can be better. Closures, bind, call, collections, signals, they all wrap each other beautifully now, where before i was trying all kinds of things with classes, prototypes and basically creating an unmaintainable mess.
 (MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:33, Reply)
This is a normal post because if you do
then it's playable by most people who can load it in a browser

the language might have flaws but the compensation is you can reach a wide audience.
 (I helped save b3ta! rob, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 16:49, Reply)
This is a normal post yeah, agreed
but the tech is fundamentally flawed IMO - it's a step backwards not forwards. That's not to say it won't catch up, I'm sure it will (and this demo shows it's getting much better).
 (I helped save b3ta! wideeye slightly pickled, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 16:51, Reply)
This is a normal post I think for a user, it is simply a step to the side.
All the things it can do could be done with Flash. They will not notice much difference.

For a developer, it makes coding easier / cheaper.

Any commercial website which goes for a 'html5 aesthetic' to look modern is likely to be the equivalent of a site ten years ago with a Flash splash page. Sites have evolved away from design-for-designs-sake, as it usually annoys people.
 (I helped save b3ta! monkeon schmonkeon, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 17:40, Reply)
This is a normal post There's plenty you can do in WebGL that you can't do in Flash.
Shame it's not actually supported on everything. Not sure why it doesn't work on my PC, and really can't be bothered to work it out.
 (Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 20:29, Reply)
This is a normal post Is WebGL actually part of HTML5, though,
or is it an experimental thing which may be included in the future?

If Microsoft don't support it, then it is pretty useless in commercial web design (though I guess gamers are going to be more willing to be told to use a different browser).
 (I helped save b3ta! monkeon schmonkeon, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:03, Reply)
This is a normal post It's not a proper ratified standard yet, last I heard.
And it's not really part of HTML5 (although that's a term that's come to mean a lot more than just the actual HTML), it's a non-standard context you can request from a canvas element. But there is already a decent consensus about it... except from Microsoft.
 (Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:16, Reply)
This is a normal post As far as I am aware, the
really great thing about HTML5 is the specification on error handling, which should hopefully mean that stuff looks the same in all browsers, no matter how it is coded.

Most of the "HTML5 demos" are more just people enjoying pushing something to its limits.
 (I helped save b3ta! monkeon schmonkeon, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 17:30, Reply)
This is a normal post This sounds a lot like OpenGL.
OpenGL specifies how things must look. This sounds great, but in practice it isn't for anything high performance, because if the hardware doesn't do what you want, then you fall back on a software pipeline that's very slow compared to hardware.

So yes, you get the same result... but at a radically slower speed.
 (Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:46, Reply)
This is a normal post In defense
I can write a well featured application that can change remote data in real time and work on almost anyone's computer immediately.

Try doing the same with Java or C++.

It's not perfect, but it's getting better all the time, due to better engines and a constantly improving spec. Harmony addresses a number of OO grumbles, but I quite like being freed from the shackles of typing and full OO.

The browser is pretty much the OS now.
 (spunkyD, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 19:07, Reply)
This is a normal post Eek!
I don't want to be freed from strong typing. It's the path to madness! (It eliminates a whole class of things you can do in typed languages to protect yourself against unexpected things being passed to functions, etc.)

(Implicit typing I'm fine with, but I still like it strong.)
 (Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:48, Reply)