Move Over AJAX, Make Room for ARAX 409
sasserstyl writes "eWeek reports that Microsoft's Silverlight platform will support Ruby client-side scripting, enabling ARAX — or Asynchronous Ruby and XML. Would be cool to have the option to script client-side in something other than Javascript. 'In essence, using ARAX, Ruby developers would not have to go through the machinations of using something like the RJS (Ruby JavaScript) utility, where they write Ruby code and RJS generates JavaScript code to run on the client, Lam said. "Sure, you could do it that way, but then at some point you might have to add some JavaScript code that adds some custom functionality on the client yourself," he said. "So there's always that sense of, 'Now I'm in another world. And wouldn't it be nice if I have this utility class I wrote in Ruby...' Today if I want to use it in the browser I have to port it to JavaScript. Now I can just run it in the browser."'"
Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody update NoScript. (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm seriously having trouble seeing a use for this. If I can't do it in Javascript, why wouldn't I do it in Java or C#? Instead of throwing another interpreted language on the browser, I'd much rather load an applet created with a static/strongly typed language. Sure, there are all kinds of security issues, but at least they're existing, understood issues. With weakly typed Ruby, you have injection issues coupled with the features that javascript rightly cut out for security reasons.
Obviously it's a big deal for Ruby, but I can't help but think that it's a boneheaded move for Microsoft. They've spent all this time pushing
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Somebody update NoScript. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do we really need this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Couple that with injection attacks being discovered on popular web sites and the growing use of Deep Packet Inspection and, honestly, we might as well just allow everyone in the world root access to all of our machines.
This is not a step forwards, it's a major step backwards. We can't be blinded by the prospect of client-side Ruby. We have to look past that and see that there are some very real security risks involved. It's less a cause for celebration and more a cause for caution towards installing Silverlight (or Flash, or any other type of embedded object that allows for client scripting).
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:4, Insightful)
Ajax (Asynchronous Javascript and XMLhttpRequest) was given a name because it was a growing trend; many decided to use it independently, and naming it something made sense. ARAX, or whatever, is just an idea a few people have. I see no trend.
Re:Somebody update NoScript. (Score:3, Insightful)
I can see 75% of Slashdot talking out of their ass on this one.
Re:This time (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you a troll (perhaps even a shill) or just a schmuck? There's nothing seriously wrong with Javascript as a language, only with specific implementations, some of which are actually quite good these days.
I'm guessing you are just a troll, but I don't want anyone to think you're right or anything and I have a little time on my hands :P
Re:This time (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is this good to run Silverlight?
Running silverlight on anything non-windows is like shoving legal issues up someone's ass and waiting for them to cough out the settlement.
Ruby on rails also seemed to work just fine without siverlight...and as comments show, more languages in the mix is not a good thing.
So yes, people are trashing MS because there is something wrong with this. If MS did anything right, we wouldnt' trash MS, we'd praise them. In this case, as usual, they haven't done anything right. I'd be glad to praise MS if they actually did something that wasn't underhanded, but when was the last time you can recall them doing that?
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more similar to Python in my mind. It's a post-Perl interpreted language that attempts to have better object-orientation while not being overly restrictive. It inherits a lot more from Perl than Python does, so you can accomplish most tasks in a variety of ways. Neither is anywhere near as rigid as Java - you don't have to catch or throw every exception, you don't have to make ten subclasses and an interface to write Hello World, etc.
I get into these kinds of discussions with my boss all the time. He looks at Java as the ultimate golden hammer, and I tend to use a variety of languages. There are a bunch of little syntactic things I love about Ruby, but in the end it's mostly a question of style, politics and library support.
Re:This time (Score:3, Insightful)
Not cool as in hijack something cool and do something that ties it to their latest thing...
Not useful as in only works in the next version of their system, if you have their modified version of Ruby and IIS and use Internet Explorer
So this is another way to break all the other systems
Scalability? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, yes. Scalability in a client-side scripting environment. For the times when a browser has to be able to handle requests from thousands of users at once!
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:5, Insightful)
Now they are trying to develop proprietary technologies to compete: Silverlight and this new ARAX bull will replace Flash and AJAX. They will release some shit-hot developer tools that make it really easy to build shiny websites on the Silverlight/ARAX stack so that before long half the web is written in it. Then, ARAX and Silverlight will get proprietary extensions (new functionality! woot!) and break on non-IE browsers (got to assure that OS monopoly). They will also add some undocumented APIs so that the (subscription-based) Microsoft Apps runs faster than anything anybody else comes ups with, and boom!
Profit.
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:This time (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://mindview.net/WebLog/log-0025 [mindview.net]
Re:This time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do we really need this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This time (Score:5, Insightful)
His argument was against your assertion that 'everybody thinks javascript just doesn't cut it for current web apps'.
This plainly isn't true as lots of people are actually very impressed by the javascript language, and just a bit frustrated that IE6 / IE7 / IE on Safari work so differently to everything else. For internal work I just ignore IE, and target Firefox only.
Even Joel has praise for javascript - take a look at his 'Can Your Programming Language Do This?' article at
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/01.html [joelonsoftware.com]
A better option than Javascript would be great, but Ruby hardly looks like the best option. A much better use of time for Microsoft would be making their Javscript engine for IE more standards compliant.
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:3, Insightful)
The masses tend to use established languages with established frameworks, because their bosses say so.
Their bosses say so because they(the bosses) don't want to pay for re-inventing and then maintain the proverbial wheel.
Hence, no matter how hotshit/elegant/orgasm-inducing/LISP-ish/un-PERL-ish/whatever a language is, if doesn't have a viable persistence model and/or mvc, etc... corporate folk won't use it.
Re:Somebody update NoScript. (Score:1, Insightful)
...except the whole point here is that Microsoft is not using said implementation, you know.
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:2, Insightful)
Ruby: When I need a quick script on Linux and need MySQL or RegEx or simple File I/O and don't want a hassle, performance doesn't matter, or I'm playing with Rails
C: Performance matters, but it' not complex enough for an OO lang.
C++: Performance matters, and it's complex enough to warrant an OO lang.
C#: My client insists on using MS products
Javascript: I need to do something client side like AJAX or manipulating the DOM.
These Ruby vs C or (insert favorite lang here) are silly and a waste of time. When you take time to learn multiple languages both interpreted and compiled, you learn that each one has it's place.
Now Ruby vs Perl vs Python debates make a little sense because they are all interpreted. So my two cents on that debate is: Ruby is very readable and looks pretty when I write it. Not so for Python and Perl. So it's a personal preference really.
So ARAX? Sounds like a decent application of Ruby to me. But Javascript is already widely deployed so you won't see me messing with it until the majority out there have it in their browsers.
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:5, Insightful)
HTTP is stateless. So is UDP. Does that make every online game that uses it stateless? The web is not a protocol.
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:4, Insightful)
- Trident (ie7): 13
- Trident (ie6): 6
- Gecko: 75
Opera and Safari are of course, disqualified as they hacked together 100 scores.I tinker with JS a bit, and things like attaching event listeners, getting first children, getting attributes, getting values, getting the URL, basically everything DOM related has to be treated differently in IE.
Worse, XMLHttpRequest, the very core of AJAX, is broken in IE7, but not IE6.
I am sorry, but you are wrong on that count. I guess if you call horrible to slightly less horrible an improvement, this is a good thing.
Re:look more closely at TFA... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:3, Insightful)
GP did not characterize it as merely a language "for people who hate Java", but as "Java for people who hate Java". Which might be a fair description of, say, C#, which is similar in role in many big-picture ways to Java, but addresses numerous points which make people who hate Java do so. It is not a useful description of Ruby, which is nothing like Java except insofar as both are Turing-complete programming languages.
Re:Um, my browser doesn't support Ruby (Score:3, Insightful)
1995 called, they want their article back! (Score:3, Insightful)
Though Java-centric in nature, the JVM provides a secure sandboxed environment to host numerous languages including Ruby [jruby.org], Python [jython.org], Lisp [sourceforge.net] and even JavaScript [mozilla.org]. Throw in Groovy [codehaus.org] and Scala [scala-lang.org] for home-grown alternatives.
Thanks to the efforts of IcedTea [classpath.org] (principally funded by RedHat) and others, Java 6 will be fully GPL by the end of the year.
oh boy... (Score:3, Insightful)