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Four Years of Jai (2024)

(smarimccarthy.is)
166 points xixixao | 10 comments | 15 Apr 25 23:17 UTC | HN request time: 1.233s | source | bottom
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sph ◴[18 Apr 25 09:07 UTC] No.43726312[source]▶
Surprising deep and level headed analysis. Jai intrigues me a lot, but my cantankerous opinion is that I will not waste my energy learning a closed source language; this ain’t the 90s any more.

I am perfectly fine for it to remain a closed alpha while Jonathan irons out the design and enacts his vision, but I hope its source gets released or forked as free software eventually.

What I am curious about, which is how I evaluate any systems programming language, is how easy it is to write a kernel with Jai. Do I have access to an asm keyword, or can I easily link assembly files? Do I have access to the linker phase to customize the layout of the ELF file? Does it need a runtime to work? Can I disable the standard library?

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mjburgess ◴[18 Apr 25 09:14 UTC] No.43726339[source]▶
Iirc, pretty sure jblow has said he's open sourcing it. I think the rough timeline is: release game within the year, then the language (closed-source), then open source it.

Tbh, I think a lot of open source projects should consider following a similar strategy --- as soon as something's open sourced, you're now dealing with a lot of community management work which is onerous.

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xigoi ◴[18 Apr 25 09:18 UTC] No.43726361[source]▶
> as soon as something's open sourced, you're now dealing with a lot of community management work which is onerous.

This is a common misconception. You can release the source code of your software without accepting contributions.

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1. mjburgess ◴[18 Apr 25 09:32 UTC] No.43726406[source]▶
I don't think the issue is just contributions. It's the visibility.

When you're a somewhat famous programmer releasing a long anticipated project, there's going to be a lot of eyes on that project. That's just going to come with hassle.

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2. diggan ◴[18 Apr 25 10:42 UTC] No.43726743[source]▶
> That's just going to come with hassle.

Well, it is the public internet, people are free to discuss whatever they come across. Just like you're free to ignore all of them, and release your software Bellard-style (just dump the release at your website, see https://bellard.org/) without any bug tracker or place for people to send patches to.

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3. tialaramex ◴[18 Apr 25 11:00 UTC] No.43726843[source]▶
Having a lot of eyes on it is only a problem if you either have a self-esteem problem and so the inevitable criticism will blow you up or, you've got an ego problem and so the inevitable criticism will hurt your poor fragile ego. I think we can be sure which of these will be a problem for Jonathan "Why didn't people pay $$$ for a remaster of my old game which no longer stands out as interesting?" Blow.
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4. sesm ◴[18 Apr 25 16:46 UTC] No.43729746[source]▶
One is also free to not provide the food for discussion, that's the choice jblow made.
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5. codr7 ◴[18 Apr 25 17:44 UTC] No.43730272{3}[source]▶
Timing IS important, releasing too early can kill public opinion on a project.
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6. stinkbutt ◴[18 Apr 25 17:50 UTC] No.43730316[source]▶
yep and JBlow is a massive gatekeeper who discourages people from learning programming if he doesn't believe they can program the way he thinks a programmer should. He is absolutely running from any criticism that will hurt his enormous yet incredibly fragile ego.
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7. ModernMech ◴[18 Apr 25 18:21 UTC] No.43730588{4}[source]▶
So can announcing too early. See: Duke Nukem Forever. Or in the language domain, V-lang.
8. mkzetta ◴[18 Apr 25 18:42 UTC] No.43730760[source]▶
He routinely livestreams himself working on the language. He doesn't seem afraid of attention.
9. mkzetta ◴[18 Apr 25 18:44 UTC] No.43730791{3}[source]▶
The hate he is receiving is bizarre. It takes guts to be opinionated - you are effectively spilling your mind (and heart) to people. And yet some people will assume the worst about you even if it's an exact inversion of the truth.
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10. ModernMech ◴[18 Apr 25 19:08 UTC] No.43731011{4}[source]▶
Opinionated people are polarizing, it makes perfect sense.