As you may already know, Python is one of the hottest programming language out there, with thousand of job offerings, so makes sense, at least for me, to push this language as official one for GNOME Mobile applications.
elementary OS is doing a good job on engagement new developers, while use Vala as its official language. For me, Vala is a good candidate for advanced/performance constrained Mobile applications.
Both languages uses GNOME’s technologies, through GObject Introspection. So, any new widget designed for responsive Mobile applications, will be available to Python and Vala.
An old License issue on GLib’s static linking on Android, can be tackled by Purism, in a form of tools to allow a dynamically loaded version. For free software, this is not an issue, but for proprietary one.
Provide a high level programing language, potentially distributed in binary form, could incentive app development.
On Vala side, allowing to develop software in this highly productive GObject focused programing language, can push up games or any performance constrained applications, development offering; while you get all goodness of GObject and C world. Thanks to C, GNOME technologies, are available to many other languages; so, Rust and C++, could find their own way.
This is just for discussion and a proposal to Mobile OSs, using GObject based software.
That’s pretty cool. Are there any good Gala tutorials for idiots?
> so makes sense, at least for me, to push this language as official one for GNOME Mobile applications.
Personally, I don’t think there should be an “official” programming language for Linux on the phone, as there is not an “official” language for Linux on the desktop. Linux has strength in diversity when it comes to what can run on it. C, C++, C#, Go, Rust, Vala, Java, Swift, Python, etc all run on Linux. This allows anyone comfortable with a language that has GTK bindings to develop quickly and comfortably with their preferred environment and language.
I agree. In this context, “official” means efforts to provide good examples and tutorials. Is nearly impossible to cover all languages for a single organization, so it can push and help, in some way, any community effort to provide such tutorials for other languages.
elementary OS has focused on Vala and produce tools for it. The same way, Google has created Android Studio.
The more resources, the more talented developers can find a way to create applications for GNOME Mobile.
GNOME has, since 3.0, I believe, had JavaScript as its official language. While that decision didn’t sit well with me at first, now I find it to be a relatively good one. The landscape is moving to web-first, and Progressive Web Applications enable crafting the same experiences as with native applications. To me, JS makes the most sense for several reasons:
1) Code reuse—one can reuse some code on the web and on the desktop
2) A dev only has to learn a single language
3) Industry focus and support
4) The existence of languages that run in a JS VM that are quite dev-friendly—Kotlin, Dart, TypeScript, …
Add to that that JS runs faster than Python, is about as simple to learn, and is already promoted by Gnome as a language to use, I think JS would make a better official language.
Are there any advantages of Python over JavaScript?
Good question. I’m a Vala/C programmer, writing libraries to be GI friendly, so can be used on Python or JS.
Maybe this is a question to JS programmers, Is it easy to develop GObject and/or Gtk focused applications?
I just now good programs in Python like Pitivi and more other in Vala, in a good shape. Don’t now any in JS, Do you?