It has been done before and arguably better. We've been using CoffeeScript for some time, it's a good example of a language that improves JavaScript significantly while not being some kind of totally different idea or doing silly things like adding static typing.

The whole point of this is to add static typing to JavaScript. Whether you think that's a good idea or not, a language that doesn't do that isn't doing "it", better or otherwise.

Nope.

@TexasToast:

Doesn't really matter.

Just watched the video. Looks promising. With enough tutorial and community support, I will totally jump on it.

Didn't see watch it clearly, but, how do I mix and match JavaScript? I mean, if I didn't include the declaration file, can I still use it? So, what is going to happen when I use TypeScript to a method that takes ANY and return ANY?

One scenario is that I want to have a strange method that can basically works for ANY. Like perhaps adding new attribute to ANY type? I don't know if this is possible in JS yet, but, I remember a bit that this can be done.

8 hours ago, Bass wrote

It has been done before and arguably better. We've been using CoffeeScript for some time, it's a good example of a language that improves JavaScript significantly while not being some kind of totally different idea or doing silly things like adding static typing.

This makes no sense. "X has been done before except while not doing X."

C

Herbie

4 hours ago, Charles wrote

The end of this thread?

TypeScript is JavaScript...

C

It's a signature of Coffeehouse to have misleading thread titles for dramatic effect, annoying as it can be

I have said before on the IE blog, "Microsoft was brought into HTML5 screaming and kicking", after a long detour into Silverlight. So now I say: Microsoft came into open source screaming and kicking, but came it did. Welcome (not that I am a great OS contributor, or any contributor).

I'm just curious what's Anders, or Microsoft, take on releasing dotnet on the same terms, or when he came to realize that open source was any good. (I'm not saying that all the great guys who contribute to open source were like that for their entire professional life, but still, it seems Microsoft were last, please close the door after you )

EDIT: And for that matter, and i'm sure Andres isn't reading this, but what's your take on Microsoft calming Linux infringes on 287 or so of their patents??

It isn't open source, but it is fantastic to be able to debug

So today Microsoft added yet ANOTHER transpiler. Great. News at 9. You see, in this new world, the fact that it's Microsoft, or Google, or Apple or anyone, means nothing.

42 minutes ago, fanbaby wrote

So today Microsoft added yet ANOTHER transpiler. Great. News at 9. You see, in this new world, the fact that it's Microsoft, or Google, or Apple or anyone, means nothing.

LOL, only in fanboy dreams. FOSS projects without substantial backing are high risk options and always will be. Nobody wants to bet heavily on something that disappears overnight because the kid responsible for it got a real job/bored/went to college etc.

The holy grail for me would be to get optional end-to-end data binding of the entire view including 1 > M relationships in the client to/from the web server via command scaffolding. This looks 1 step closer in that direction.

... or doing silly things like adding static typing ...

Don't make me come over there!

...but what's your take on Microsoft calming Linux infringes on 287 or so of their patents??...

I wouldn't get your hopes up. Employees with their Microsoft hat on are usually not silly enough to venture close to the legal pit of death that questions like that might send them spiraling into.

I would call it JS+1. Because it is using JS as IL and one level on top of the IL.

Go back to your FORTRAN coding grandpa.

1) Where do I go to get up-to-date d.ts files? Like jquery.d.ts? Is there a repository?

2) Is there actual documentation? Or do I just get a bunch of samples and a playground?

Right now I am getting lots of "The property X does not exist on the value of type Y." errors, and I don't see an obvious fix.

-Josh

The obvious fix would be to disable "type" checking in the compiler. I notice that in their playground, "type" mismatches only produce warnings, so I assume it is possible.

And interfaces don't seem to collide with each other. I guess they are just merged some how. Last in wins?

-Josh

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

@evildictaitor:

Go back to your FORTRAN coding grandpa.

Any time you save by not typing out types is more than made up hunting bugs that would trigger compile-time errors in any good language.

Case in point: When did you last reuse code? How many JavaScript libraries have you made? When you start a new webpage, how much time do you spend writing code you've already written before? When was the last time you got to debug an exception that happened on a customer's machine or step through your code?

I'll stick with my FORTRAN. It's got way better features than your JavaScript does.

@evildictaitor:

Obviously what we need is a FORTRAN to JS compiler.

Obviously what we need is a FORTRAN to JS compiler.

Then at least Javascript would have types.

And there we are. Full circle.

-Josh

JavaScript has types.

@JoshRoss:

If there is a demonstrable benefit, sometimes it can be worth doing unnecessary things. But you shouldn't do something without a knowable benefit. Unless you are a religious man, of course.

@cbae:

Correct sans for the qualifier "he thinks". Comments are always unnecessary, regardless of "he thinks" or "X think(s)", because by definition they are ignored by the compiler.

1 hour ago, cbae wrote

@JoshRoss: IIRC, Bass even stated that he thinks comments in source code to be unnecessary.

I know that he doesn't comment his code, but I would think he would comment his check-ins.

You got me.

@JoshRoss:

Pre-commit hooks can force comments that aren't an empty string.

But now that you made me think about it, this process deserves scrutiny. If I add "i = 7" and commit comment "assigned 9 to i", I'm pretty sure every version control in existence will gladly accept this clear deception. That is a bug, and a dangerous one at that.

You really say comments are unnecessary or you were joking? Just want to double check.

Pre-commit hooks can force comments that aren't an empty string.

But now that you made me think about it, this process deserves scrutiny. If I add "i = 7" and commit comment "assigned 9 to i", I'm pretty sure every version control in existence will gladly accept this clear deception. That is a bug, and a dangerous one at that.

That's not a bug, it's a reason to fire a bad programmer.

Either:

1. The author can't write understandable code.
2. The reader isn't qualified enough to understand the code, and shouldn't be let anywhere near it .. comments or not.
3. The language isn't expressive enough.

IMO, this is in order of commonality. All these are some kind of failure. Comments thus are a crutch for some kind of deeper failure in the code, organization doing the commenting, or programming language.

If comments were docile, I'd let it pass. But from the perspective of the machine, they aren't falsifiable. So:

1. They can outright lie (maliciously even.. only code can be trusted) or get stale or just wrong over time.
2. They can't be proven correct (see: unit tests for an informal but pretty effective way of testing the functionality of code, AFAIK no equivalent exists for comments).

I feel that adding the ability to comment code is up there with the "null" type in the fail department of programming languages, ie. one of the worst ideas to ever grace the programming profession.

Unfortunately, because comments are so easy to add to programming languages, they will continue on forever I'm sure.

Or even "this is a really ugly hack but it's necessary, better explain why I did it lest this code end up on thedailywtf"?

Comments that explain what you are doing are bad, for reasons you say (except in documentation comments since as the consumer of a method I don't want to have to read the code). But comments that explain why you are doing something are absolutely indispensable. And if your algorithm is complex enough, I'd rather read a few lines of text (with the possibility that they might be stale or wrong) than weed through 1000s of lines of codes in the hopes of figuring it out.

10 hours ago, fanbaby wrote

Just to add to my post, open source is great isn't it? We live in a great time. OS is the great equalizer. How else can a single guy create something, say jQuery or CoffeeScript, which decimates other work by large teams, whether open or close.

So today Microsoft added yet ANOTHER transpiler. Great. News at 9. You see, in this new world, the fact that it's Microsoft, or Google, or Apple or anyone, means nothing.

Well said - though you might be surprised at how many important projects at Microsoft are the responsibility, code-wise, of basically one developer or a small team ...

As for nulls, they're not usually types per se. They simply add to the range of possible values for a given type. I find the concept useful.

OTOH, I think the difference between == and === operators is one of the most retarded concepts ever invented.

24 minutes ago, Bass wrote

I don't like the philosophy behind commenting code. It seems to imply that the code itself isn't understandable. And that is the fundamental problem.

Either:

1. The author can't write understandable code.
2. The reader isn't qualified enough to understand the code, and shouldn't be let anywhere near it .. comments or not.
3. The language isn't expressive enough.

IMO, this is in order of commonality. All these are some kind of failure. Comments thus are a crutch for some kind of deeper failure in the code, organization doing the commenting, or programming language.

If comments were docile, I'd let it pass. But from the perspective of the machine, they aren't falsifiable. So:

1. They can outright lie (maliciously even.. only code can be trusted) or get stale or just wrong over time.
2. They can't be proven correct (see: unit tests for an informal but pretty effective way of testing the functionality of code, AFAIK no equivalent exists for comments).

I feel that adding the ability to comment code is up there with the "null" type in the fail department of programming languages, ie. one of the worst ideas to ever grace the programming profession.

Unfortunately, because comments are so easy to add to programming languages, they will continue on forever I'm sure.

I agree with the principle, but I think you are taking things too far.

Just to make an example, the readability of any piece of code is strongly correlated to how meaningful are the identifiers the programmer chose. Yet, identifers are just as unverifiable and potentially misleading as comments.

If anything, yours are excellent arguments for the introduction of optional type annotations as they make it easier for programmers to express the intent of the code, when needed, and provide some implicit verifiability.

-Josh

10 hours ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

LOL, only in fanboy dreams. FOSS projects without substantial backing are high risk options and always will be. Nobody wants to bet heavily on something that disappears overnight because the kid responsible for it got a real job/bored/went to college etc.

While it's true there are risks for using FOSS stuff Microsoft has left people high and dry too.

• VBScript
• J#
• FoxPro
• WPF/SL
• WP7

I used to think Microsoft was in it for the long game but it's pretty clear with what they did with WP7 and WPF/SL and now their replacement that locks you into W8 that it's "use at your own risk". There is no difference in Microsoft "supporting" a deprecated language, API, etc. or a FOSS project that goes dark. You can still use both stacks they're just not going anywhere. At least if you're desperate for a fix in a FOSS project you can get the source and fix it yourself.

That said I do give Microsoft credit for embracing FOSS stuff like node.js, jquery, etc. It helps balance things out a bit.

-Josh

31 minutes ago, JoshRoss wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio: And Windows Mobile, but that was junk. But, if they were any good, people would still be using them. These tools are like sharks, if they aren't moving forwards, then they are dead.

-Josh

No argument there; just that Microsoft is no better. And they have that nagging thing called a profit motive hanging over their heads...

2 hours ago, Bass wrote

I don't like the philosophy behind commenting code. It seems to imply that the code itself isn't understandable. And that is the fundamental problem.

So you are a mind reader aren't you. You can predict perfectly what the intent of the previous programmer's design decisions by just looking at its code.

Sometimes you see code that doesn't do exactly what you would expect, but, for good reasons. If they don't leave a comment to why they decided to implement this way, you would just think they are nuts.

12 minutes ago, kettch wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio: At this point, I would say that Microsoft is doing FOSS better than the other companies who present themselves as champions of FOSS.

Really? How so? Just curious.

Microsoft doesn't use any FOSS in their products, but gives a whole lot to the community. They aren't even pushing their own branded licenses any more and are instead using licenses that are more palatable to the FOSS fanbois.

1 day ago, Bass wrote

It has been done before and arguably better. We've been using CoffeeScript for some time, it's a good example of a language that improves JavaScript significantly while not being some kind of totally different idea or doing silly things like adding static typing.

Well, just because it's been done before is no reason not to try to make it better. And what's wrong with static type checking? Won't that mean less errors (especially for inexperienced programmers) and more speed?

This is a worthy effort though from first looks I prefer Kotlin.

CoffeeScript and Kotlin are new languages, while TypeScript is a language extension; that's why it's different from previous attempts.

Herbie

3 hours ago, Dr Herbie wrote

@Ray7: Except Typescript is not the same idea as CoffeeScript or Kotlin!  

CoffeeScript and Kotlin are new languages, while TypeScript is a language extension; that's why it's different from previous attempts.

Herbie

Ah, I see. So there's the 'familiarity' thing ...

Verrry interesting ....

Herbie

19 minutes ago, Dr Herbie wrote

@Ray7: Also, you can rename your existing JavaScript files to a TS extension and hey-presto, they're valid as Typescript; easy transition is important when there is a whole world of JavaScript already out there -- nobody is likely to throw away an entire site's worth of JavaScript and rewrite in CoffeeScript, but they might rename some files and run it through the TypeScript compiler as a starting point ...

Herbie

Okay, how does the compiler work? It says that it runs on any OS anywhere, yes? So I don't need VS to compile this?

The http://www.typescriptlang.org/ page states that the compiler can be used in any JavaScript host, but the details are a bit thin.

Herbie

function greeter(person : Person) {

return "Hello, " + person.firstname + " " + person.lastname;
}

What's wrong with this?

function greeter(person : Person) {

return "Hello, ${person.firstname} ${person.lastname)";
}

8 hours ago, kettch wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio: They are the most upfront about what they are doing. Companies like Google and Apple seem to be hiding behind the FOSS banner and using it for their own purposes, but don't seem to give back as much as they take.

Microsoft doesn't use any FOSS in their products, but gives a whole lot to the community. They aren't even pushing their own branded licenses any more and are instead using licenses that are more palatable to the FOSS fanbois.

Hmmm... I'd agree about Apple; can't think of anything they've contributed. Maybe bug fixes to webkit, mach? Google on the other-hand does plenty...open source Android for starters. If anything they endorse and legitimize FOSS projects much like Microsoft does. I'm also glad Google battled Oracle over java to keep Oracle from locking that beast down and trying to monetize it.

I just wish people would stop polarizing around specific tech or companies. It's one thing to say something or someone sucks; it's an entirely different thing to take up the life long cause of being an apologist for a given tech or company. That's just a general statement and not directed at you or anyone. Being an apologist, fanboi, or otherwise removes critical thinking from the equation and limits growth.

9 minutes ago, Dr Herbie wrote

@Ray7: That's where my knowledge ends, unfortunately.  I've been reading about it, but haven't used it yet.

The http://www.typescriptlang.org/ page states that the compiler can be used in any JavaScript host, but the details are a bit thin.

Herbie

Yes, that's the bit that I'm missing. It seems to have something to with Node.js but I can't quite make the connection.

23 seconds ago, DeathBy​VisualStudio wrote

*snip*

Hmmm... I'd agree about Apple; can't think of anything they've contributed. Maybe bug fixes to webkit, mach? Google on the other-hand does plenty...open source Android for starters.

Seriously?

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/report-open-source-android-mobile-platform-not-very-open-at-all/54085

Most commercial companies support open source up to a point. The 'point' is where it starts to impact their profits.

I just wish people would stop polarizing around specific tech or companies. It's one thing to say something or someone sucks; it's an entirely different thing to take up the life long cause of being an apologist for a given tech or company. That's just a general statement and not directed at you or anyone. Being an apologist, fanboi, or otherwise removes critical thinking from the equation and limits growth.

In my experience, those who label others as 'apologists' and/or 'fanbois' are usually both.

9 minutes ago, Ray7 wrote

Okay, they missed a trick here.

*snip*

 

What's wrong with this?

*snip*

 

I'm not sure if this is the case, but if they aim to be a compatible superset of JavaScript (and from the renaming stuff Herbie has been mentioning it sounds like they do) that would break any regular JavaScript code that happens to include stuff like that in a string.

var user = new Student("Jane", "M.", "User");

Do we really need a constructor? Why not just a member function to set the values?

2 minutes ago, Sven Groot wrote

*snip*

I'm not sure if this is the case, but if they aim to be a compatible superset of JavaScript (and from the renaming stuff Herbie has been mentioning it sounds like they do) that would break any regular JavaScript code that happens to include stuff like that in a string.

Mmmm. Yes, that makes a lot of sense,

I guess that is the problem if you're aiming to extend rather than come up with a new language. Fairynuff.

Have you watched the C9 video yet? Because that explained about everything. For example, the new constructor is mapped to the JS pattern that defines constructor. If you don't want to do that, you can use method for that. But you need to think about Type. Meaning, you can pass in a Object that has specific student attributes, but, you cannot say obj.SetSrudentAttrributes().

You don't need to rewrite the source, but, you need to give a type declaration xx.d.ts file. So TS would know know it is not ANY yet. If you pass in pure JS, the type is ANY, which I dont know how the IDE deal with it. Probably in the same video that I need to rewatch.

1 hour ago, Ray7 wrote

Okay, they missed a trick here.

*snip*

What trick?

What's wrong with this?

function greeter(person : Person) {return "Hello, ${person.firstname} ${person.lastname)";} 

There's nothing syntactically wrong with it. It returns a string literal.

55 minutes ago, Ray7 wrote

And I'm not sure there's really a need for a 'new' keyword here.

*snip*

Do we really need a constructor? Why not just a member function to set the values?

Can you prevent a member function from being called more than once on the same instance?

10 hours ago, petr.antos wrote

Ray7: tsc can simply compile itself to JS file, so you can use it as embedded scripting precompiler, which exposes everything useful for you too, types "reflections", refactorings, code analysis, syntax coloring, etc ... its pure-JS, thats the trick , no VS needed, no node.js needed ...........

That is ... GENIUS! 

10 hours ago, petr.antos wrote

Ray7: and as probably biggest TS project now, tsc source code in few .ts files is really very good start to analyze tooling features support using VS2012 plugin, to try to understand how it works. Already this is pure beauty, you have open compiler interface at aour fingertips, you can skip to definitions, find references, simply everything you do to figure out how yet unknown code works; so good to learn how much MS eats own dog food (not foot:-)) here

I think the big win here is the compiling compiler. And I think MS clearly recognises that they'll get much more traction by extending Javascript rather than writing a new language. 

I'd like to announce that I've just made TypeScript Compile, a client-side script which compiles your TypeScript into JavaScript on the fly. No need for tsc, node.js or VS. Just write your TC code in <script> just like JS and include TypeScript Compile. The code will compile and run automatically.

Please tell me what you think about it and fork the code if you'd like to improve it.

16 hours ago, Sven Groot wrote

*snip*

I'm not sure if this is the case, but if they aim to be a compatible superset of JavaScript (and from the renaming stuff Herbie has been mentioning it sounds like they do) that would break any regular JavaScript code that happens to include stuff like that in a string.

Now I think about it, it would be just as easy to come up with a String function that does the same thing.

15 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

@Ray7:

Have you watched the C9 video yet? Because that explained about everything. For example, the new constructor is mapped to the JS pattern that defines constructor. If you don't want to do that, you can use method for that. But you need to think about Type. Meaning, you can pass in a Object that has specific student attributes, but, you cannot say obj.SetSrudentAttrributes().

You don't need to rewrite the source, but, you need to give a type declaration xx.d.ts file. So TS would know know it is not ANY yet. If you pass in pure JS, the type is ANY, which I dont know how the IDE deal with it. Probably in the same video that I need to rewatch.

Yes, I think I have this rather set idea about dynamic languages: objects should just be THERE, sort of a thing. But of course, once you start adding types then all bets are off really. 

1 day ago, kettch wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio: They are the most upfront about what they are doing. Companies like Google and Apple seem to be hiding behind the FOSS banner and using it for their own purposes, but don't seem to give back as much as they take.

Microsoft doesn't use any FOSS in their products, but gives a whole lot to the community. They aren't even pushing their own branded licenses any more and are instead using licenses that are more palatable to the FOSS fanbois.

I understand your point about Google and Apple just using OS contributors, while Microsoft is at least being honest. Don't agree tough.

I am more interested to understand someone who DOESN'T see him/herself as a "FOSS fanboi". How does that work? On the face of it it looks like this: "Hey, here's a small jewel for you, it's yours, it's free! No thanks, i'll wait when it'll be available at the store".

At least if a big company releases something open you can have a higher level of confidence that the quality will be good without having to spend the time performing your own quality control.

Additionally, larger companies tend not to use the latest GPL which I have come to dislike for being too dictatorial (and therefore less 'free', ironically).

Herbie

2 hours ago, Dr Herbie wrote

@fanbaby: Part of the problem (in my experience) is quality control -- taking a 'jewel' from someone you don't know might well turn out to be made of paste, or even worse contain arsenic that poisons everything.

At least if a big company releases something open you can have a higher level of confidence that the quality will be good without having to spend the time performing your own quality control.

Additionally, larger companies tend not to use the latest GPL which I have come to dislike for being too dictatorial (and therefore less 'free', ironically).

Herbie

I've rarely had a problem with the quality of an OSS product; the issue is usually that the project gets abandoned.

But this can happen with commercial software, so ...

With someone like Microsoft running this, you can guarantee that the whole shooting match will be well documented, something that OS often lacks.

I've rarely had a problem with the quality of an OSS product; the issue is usually that the project gets abandoned.

But this can happen with commercial software, so ...

Yes, but if you're paying a company money, you have some kind of recourse on them to ensure that they patch their product and continue to support it whilst you keep paying.

Joe-in-his-bedroom has no real incentive to produce high-quality code, or to provide prompt patches or to support your product beyond a few weeks after it becomes business critical to your company.

Case in point: IE6 might be possibly the worst invention since sliced-bread, but it was absolutely business critical to a ton of organisations. It was supported by Microsoft for a full 10 years whilst they had 3 newer major versions available. Microsoft would still patch IE6 for critical updates long after Microsoft was actively telling customers not to use it.

The upshot of this was that companies for whom IE6 was critical, didn't have to fight the ideology of companies like Google who silently update, remove features, swap things around and generally play shenanigans with any business's attempt to script the browser or bundle it into business critical apps.

So yes, Chrome might be great for normal home-users, but it (and FOSS projects like it) are never going to be loved by enterprise in the way that IE is loved, because enterprise wants programs to be supported and reliable for as long as at all possible. Whereas FOSS developer like to change things, give users (rather than administrators) lots of customisations, like to support only the most recent version, and like having seamless, non-optional updates that make it incredibly difficult for large organisations to deploy.

FOSS is great for home, but it really sucks for companies.

That's the thing, because it is open source it's much easier to offer money to get a fix because you have options. Hell, you can fix it yourself!

If the software is proprietary, good luck with that. The proprietary originator might have even went bankrupt and the source code lost in the chaos. Hell, the whole idea that you'd trust parts of your critical business systems to a random external vendor with different business interests is crazy.

Actually, this exact reason is why many of the larger organizations use FOSS over proprietary software these days. FOSS gives a piece of mind that is impossible with proprietary software.

The idea that Microsoft doesn't use FOSS is strictly incorrect. In fact jQuery is bundled with ASP.NET MVC these days. Obviously they use Git and Mercurial source control too. This is all stuff that is publicly known, there also evidence (copyright strings, etc.) that Windows had BSD code in for awhile, and some evidence that Microsoft used Hadoop/HBase in Bing at some point (well, PowerSet was, which was bought by Microsoft - I highly doubt they threw away all of PowerSet's code on the day they acquired them).

But the thing is, it doesn't matter. You aren't a better FOSS contributor if you avoid using it. Really, the whole contention is silly.

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

*snip*

FOSS gives a piece of mind that is impossible with proprietary software.

I didn't picture you as an Iron Maiden fan.

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

@AndyC:

That's the thing, because it is open source it's much easier to offer money to get a fix because you have options. Hell, you can fix it yourself!

That may be true in theory, but how many people can actually fix a bug they found in Linux, or MySQL? Very few.

If the software is proprietary, good luck with that. The proprietary originator might have even went bankrupt and the source code lost in the chaos. Hell, the whole idea that you'd trust parts of your critical business systems to a random external vendor with different business interests is crazy.

And open source projects can be abandoned with the business user left with a million lines of source code and no idea what to do with it.

Actually, this exact reason is why many of the larger organizations use FOSS over proprietary software these days. FOSS gives a piece of mind that is impossible with proprietary software.

The reason that many large organisations use FOSS over proprietary software is that they don't have to pay for it. Idealism rarely has anything to do with it.

But the thing is, it doesn't matter. You aren't a better FOSS contributor if you avoid using it. Really, the whole contention is silly.

Yes, the logic of that blew right past me ...

3 hours ago, Bass wrote

That's the thing, because it is open source it's much easier to offer money to get a fix because you have options. Hell, you can fix it yourself!

If the software is proprietary, good luck with that. The proprietary originator might have even went bankrupt and the source code lost in the chaos. Hell, the whole idea that you'd trust parts of your critical business systems to a random external vendor with different business interests is crazy.

Actually, this exact reason is why many of the larger organizations use FOSS over proprietary software these days. FOSS gives a piece of mind that is impossible with proprietary software.

normal "users" do not write software and would not have a clue how to even start to "fix" a program.

and who do you pay ?  if the project has say 12 folks who work on it who do you pay them ? and who do you talk to ? really ...

sure things like a business going under happen... but i can't even count how many times i used to deal with folks in the open source world who were no help at all / had attitudes that stunk etc...

there are for sure a lot of good folks out there who are helpfull but it's a mixed bag. 

I'm not talking about "normal users", I'm talking about big organizations with software engineering staff. Apple, Google, Facebook, IBM, Oracle, etc. come to mind, but of course, there are many others (incl. the peeps I work for) who have the engineering ability to contribute to or modify FOSS software in their own self-interest. And do.

Also there are many companies (eg. Red Hat) that will gladly take your money to add features to FOSS software, and they have wide expertise in doing that sort of thing.

The difference between FOSS and proprietary is a legal distinction and nothing more. FOSS can be made by big companies (Microsoft even! see: the OT of this thread) and proprietary software can be made people like Joe in his basement (I've been that Joe in his basement before, well besides the basement part).

The whole tangent of "big companies vs Joes" is kind of ridiculous and nonsensical in a way.

You could do similar things to what FOSS provides using reverse engineering with proprietary software. For instance making a modified version of MS Windows and putting it up on BitTorrent or selling it in a store for profit. But you chance getting caught and sued or worse. The Windows EULA does not permit you to redistribute or modify Windows, even for non-commercial purposes.

Not so with FOSS. I could (and actually have) made customized versions of Linux and other FOSS that I have outright redistributed. The license agreement permits this.

Really, that's the difference. Anything else is just random nonsensical posturing.

16 hours ago, Bass wrote

The whole tangent of "big companies vs Joes" is kind of ridiculous and nonsensical in a way.

No, that's actually the only thing that matters. Being FOSS is basically meaningless for 99% of companies out there that have no software developers nor the desire to employ them. For them, software backed by reliable "big name" companies is a much safer investment than software which doesn't have that sense of stability (whether justified or not).

2 hours ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

No, that's actually the only thing that matters. Being FOSS is basically meaningless for 99% of companies out there that have no software developers nor the desire to employ them. For them, software backed by reliable "big name" companies is a much safer investment than software which doesn't have that sense of stability (whether justified or not).

and many small to say mid size just do not have the time and the bankroll to spend on paying someone to spend time finding out how the code works or who to trust for support.

as long as that is the case then a lot the time the free software loses.

I guess Bass you just do not "get it"  90% of the world is not interested in the whole foss thing, they just want stuff that works.   so the foss ideals of giving the the power to the people only addresses the small technical slice of the pie and totally misses the larger audience that it was supposed to help / empower.

nuff said.

I don't know where you get your 99% number from? Some kind of study or something you could link to please? if I used my own observations when working for various organisations, I would say something like 100% of all companies have software developers.

Also, the "only" thing that matters? I have an idea of something that matters: the product actually doing solving the problem. I don't care if it was backed by Joe The Plumber or "Backed by the Full Faith and Credit of the Federal Government of the United States of America". If the product doesn't solve the problem, it's basically useless.

Regardless, FOSS is definitely preferable to proprietary. If all things are the same, if I could get Windows or Office for free and with the ability to modify and redistribute it without restriction, that would be much better than the current situation. That is unless you are into kinky finance/legal BSDM with your vendors (yes, it is a real thing). I won't judge you.

"I guess Bass you just do not "get it"  90% of the world is not interested in the whole foss thing, they just want stuff that works."

90%? That's another interesting statistic. I'd love to see the study. But unfortunately, all I got are studies like this:

https://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200:libby-clark/579384:survey-open-source-adoption-rises-drives-innovation?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

"""

This year's "Future of Open Source Survey" results signal a tipping point for open source software adoption in the enterprise and non-technical industries such as automotive, health care and finance. In the auto industry, for example, 59 percent of the companies surveyed use open source software and 35 percent said they're evaluating it.

"""

Wow, that's some interesting results! Perhaps you were reading this same study as me, but you made a simple typo? Perhaps you meant "90% of the world is not interested in the whole foss thing"

"""

Of the 740 companies surveyed, 42 percent said adoption in the non-technical segments was the No. 1 trend driving open source in 2012.

"""

Hmmm... so it's not just technical segments. This is interesting to me, because I never even worked in a non-technical segment before. Good to know.

"""

They turn to open source software to escape vendor lock-in, lower costs and increase quality, according to the survey.

"""
Wow, this statement sure seems familiar.

Also interesting, "Lack of formal commercial vendor support" was not the biggest barrier to open source adoption. Rather, it was simply unfamiliarity with open source solutions.

Interesting stuff indeed. FOSS is more popular than some people realise here, I suppose.

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

@AndyC:

I don't know where you get your 99% number from? Some kind of study or something you could link to please? if I used my own observations when working for various organisations, I would say something like 100% of all companies have software developers.

If you honestly think most companies employ software developers, have any interest in software development or indeed even the slightest desire in diverting resources into something that isn't a core competency of their business, you're massively deluded I'm afraid.

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

@figuerres:

"""

Of the 740 companies surveyed, 42 percent said adoption in the non-technical segments was the No. 1 trend driving open source in 2012.

"""

Hmmm... so it's not just technical segments. This is interesting to me, because I never even worked in a non-technical segment before. Good to know.

And how much of that adoption was outside of the "big name" projects like Apache or Linux, both of which would fall under the category of having substantial commercial backing from known names. Nobody has argued that people avoid FOSS, rather that there is an inclination to prefer "known" products from reliable names far more then some random project started by your average Joe.

Also interesting, "Lack of formal commercial vendor support" was not the biggest barrier to open source adoption. Rather, it was simply unfamiliarity with open source solutions.

Interesting stuff indeed. FOSS is more popular than some people realise here, I suppose.

More interesting

"Number of Survey Respondents in 2011: 455

Number in 2012: 740"

Are you aware of the concept "statistically insignificant"?

19 hours ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

If you honestly think most companies employ software developers, have any interest in software development or indeed even the slightest desire in diverting resources into something that isn't a core competency of their business, you're massively deluded I'm afraid.

*snip*

I would go so far as to say that not even 100% of software companies employ software developers.

If you honestly think most companies employ software developers, have any interest in software development or indeed even the slightest desire in diverting resources into something that isn't a core competency of their business, you're massively deluded I'm afraid.

Well, I'm a man of science. It's very rare that I accept quantitative statements on faith alone. When you throw numbers at me, it would be nice to know how you derived those numbers. I'm not going to sit around and pick apart your statistical models. But it would be nice to have something more to back them up than well... nothing. Just saying.

And how much of that adoption was outside of the "big name" projects like Apache or Linux, both of which would fall under the category of having substantial commercial backing from known names. Nobody has argued that people avoid FOSS, rather that there is an inclination to prefer "known" products from reliable names far more then some random project started by your average Joe.

Alright. But that's a fairly concrete hypothesis. It would need to be tested before I can argue for or against it.

It's worth noting that companies like Red Hat or Canonical support a huge variety of software, it's very hard to find something they won't "support" if you hand them money, and they have the expertise to do so generally speaking. That doesn't change your hypothesis, but it could potentially change the definition of "known" in the context of it.

Are you aware of the concept "statistically insignificant"?

So you'd like to discredit the study? Ah!

I am aware of the concept "statistically insignificant", but I assume my understanding is different than yours. I am not a pro-statistician by any means, so please free to explain how this study is statistically insignificant. Feel free to use to mathematical concepts in your argument. That would make it more enjoyable for me. I like Greek letters, they look very pretty in my font set.

You could do similar things to what FOSS provides using reverse engineering with proprietary software. For instance making a modified version of MS Windows and putting it up on BitTorrent or selling it in a store for profit. But you chance getting caught and sued or worse. The Windows EULA does not permit you to redistribute or modify Windows, even for non-commercial purposes.

Most companies and most users for that matter have absolutely no desire to modify their Windows installation either.

The fetish of wanting to brand, tinker-with, modify, swap-out and play with bits of software is something that belongs exclusively to developers.

A developer might say "Oh, curses, this software doesn't work in precisely the configuration I want. Right. Here's my Visual Studio, where do I prod".

A normal user - never mind one with actual work to do - says "Stupid software. Why won't you just let me do my work. Who do I have to telephone to get this software to get out of my face and let me do some work today?".

That's why I like independent studies to see how the world is moving. I like numbers but not when they come from myself or random people. It just doesn't lead to good science.

51 minutes ago, Bass wrote

*snip*

I am aware of the concept "statistically insignificant", but I assume my understanding is different than yours. I am not a pro-statistician by any means, so please free to explain how this study is statistically insignificant. Feel free to use to mathematical concepts in your argument. That would make it more enjoyable for me. I like Greek letters, they look very pretty in my font set.

740 companies. There are more than that in my local Yellow Pages, for a single city in Britain (not a particularly large city as it happens, in by no means the largest country in the world). Do you really need me to do the maths for you?

And, FWIW, I've spent most of my working life in the higher education sector, which has always been far more heavily skewed in favour of *nix and one of the breeding grounds of FOSS. I've not lived a life in some Microsoft funded cocoon, as you seem to imagine.

"Do you really need me to do the maths for you?"

Yes please! It would be very enlightening to see mathematically why a sample size of 700+ is statistically insignificant.

37 minutes ago, Richard.Hein wrote

*snip*

Why would anyone with a lot of JS and VS2012 not use TypeScript?

Well, there still exist masochists in the world that would rather program in Emacs than in a modern IDE.

1 day ago, cbae wrote

*snip*

Well, there still exist masochists in the world that would rather program in Emacs than in a modern IDE.

-Josh

Edit: I should have looked first.

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3808

TypeScript is the ladder with which html-fudding, VS-loving DOTNET fan-things can quietly climb down. 

You heard it here first folks, feel free to retweet 

Herbie

-Josh