List of languages that compile to JS

https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS

by gaoprea • 13 years ago

95 48 13 years ago

kreek• 13 years ago

I was going to make snarky comment about writing JavaScript in JavaScript until I saw the language extensions section, very useful!

joemaller1• 13 years ago

And I expect most of these can be compiled via a Grunt task. JavaScript is the Borg.

saurik• 13 years ago

This seems to be a "gave up on website, replaced with GitHub" version of altjs.org (which now rediects here). (This website used to have Cycript listed, but now doesn't.)

jashkenas2• 13 years ago

Interesting historical note — AltJS.org was originally taken from a version of this page, and then forked off from there.

zem• 13 years ago

if you're interested in the topic, altjs.reddit.com could use some love

gordonguthrie6• 13 years ago

Boy am I glad I added LuvvieScript (Erlang dialect) to it last week. Its sits a bit lonely, the last transpile-to-javascript language to come in. Robert Virding of Lisp-Flavoured-Erlang pointed out that once I get it working all the other compile-to-Erlang languages (Elixir, LFE, Joxa) will also run in the browser (so no pressure then).

gordonguthrie6• 13 years ago

If you fancy developing your own transpile-to-js language I have written up the actual process in some detail: http://luvv.ie/toolchain.html

Erlang (via Erlang Core) is actually quite a sweet example. Erlang (which is small) is transformed into Erlang Core (a language targetted at machines not humans) which has a very small set of primitives (21 in all). That Language is turned into a compact AST which is then transpiled to a Javascript AST and transformed back up to Javascript using standard JS syntax tools.

I have also written up the thinking about how to make an OTP-ish Erlang dialect in the browser work as part of Erlang/OTP's 'span of control' in the server-side cluster: http://luvv.ie/mission.html

lucaspiller• 13 years ago

Wow, I thought at first this was just making an Erlang-style syntax compile to JS, but this is much more than that. Very nice!

Does it run on BeamJS? :D

parallelist• 13 years ago

Can’t believe how long this list is. Would be great to have some kind of maturity rating system for each item.

courtewing• 13 years ago

While by no means a definitive system, the order in which they're listed within each section tends to reflect their maturity to a degree (at least amongst the top few in each section).

rubiquity3• 13 years ago

From my experience, CoffeeScript seems to be running away from the pack. ClojureScript, Dart and TypeScript all are probably leaders of the second tier, which is far and away more popular than the rest.

chc2• 13 years ago

CoffeeScript was never part of the pack. It's older than most of these and introduced most people to the idea of languages that compile to JavaScript.

josteink• 13 years ago

Indeed. I was coming here expecting the list to be long, and I was still surprised at how much bigger it was than I initially imagined.

Fasebook• 13 years ago

This shows us how useful JS really is.

rubiquity3• 13 years ago

More like: "This shows us how desirable it is to try and circumvent writing JavaScript, despite how important the Web is."

I'm not saying JavaScript is good or bad. Just saying that there is certainly a strong desire to not write it, as evidenced by this long list of transpile languages.

buckbova• 13 years ago

It goes the other way too, see rhino:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Rhino/Overview

soganess• 13 years ago

Or, more simply, a good indirect indicator of how desirable a common vm for the web really is.

Touche• 13 years ago

That's the glass-half-empty look at it. I look at it the opposite: it's rather easy to write a web application in any language you want. Unlike the native platforms (especially on mobile). In fact, the web community puts a lot of effort into making it easy for you to use an altjs language.

_random_2• 13 years ago

Dirt is useful for growing plants, but you don't want to touch it ;)

gaoprea• 13 years ago

I expect an increasingly larger C/C++ codebase to be ported with emscripten and asm.js with decent enough performance (especially dev tools). Currently C++ code compiled with emscripten runs in Firefox only 1.5x slower than natively compiled code [1]. Notable ports can be found at emscripten wiki page [2].

[1] https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/gap-between-asm-js-and-nat...

[2] https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki

auvi• 13 years ago

I want to say that JavaScript is the "Assembly Language" of the web.

steveklabnik• 13 years ago

asm.js (which is JavaScript) is the assembly language of the web. ;)

_random_2• 13 years ago

Exactly. It should be hidden away from you and you shouldn't have to deal with it.

babby• 13 years ago

I've had this discussion in other threads; but, how wise it is to use these instead of vanilla JS in a project you want contributed to?

I personally find CoffeeScript very useful, and believe it's sufficiently widespread and mature as to be viable. All of these others though, I can only see it as increasing the learning curve on a project. I want to use IcedCoffeeScript (Oh, am I tired of Promises) and some of the JS extensions but I can't justify it. It's like a cake that I know I can't eat.

nickik5• 13 years ago

instead of vanilla JS in a project you want contributed to

Not sure what this means? If there is a existing project, it would probably be better to do JS. If you start a new project, or you want to change the language then you move forward with the new language and slowly replace or just keep using the old JS.

(Oh, am I tired of Promises)

Insted of just adding Await and Defer, when you switch to ClojureScript, you will get full CSP semantics, full first class channels, essentially what Go offers on the server.

Check out this blog, it mostly talks about the difference between different ways of front end programming, callbacks, CSP and so on: http://swannodette.github.io/

acjohnson552• 13 years ago

The one limitation I see with using await-defer or generators for async code, instead of promises, is that you lose the ability to specify multiple continuations to your async call. With a promise, you can always continue your synchronous work after setting your `then` handler.

speg• 13 years ago

I'm torn between CoffeeScript and TypeScript. If there was a language that had the syntax sugar of CoffeeScript plus static typing, I would be in heaven.

jashkenas2• 13 years ago

Welcome to heaven, then.

http://bolinfest.com/coffee/features.html

https://github.com/Steida/este/

embwbam• 13 years ago

Typescript was worth the sacrifice for me and those I work with. The benefits easily outweigh those of coffee script. It is painful though at first.

jgalt212• 13 years ago

JS + lodash is good enough for me.

mahadazad• 13 years ago

Wow thats a never ending list.

diminoten• 13 years ago

How is async.js a language extension? If it's a "language extension", then isn't it arguable that every library is a "language extension"?

At the very least I'm unsatisfied with the rationale provided in the page. Other items generally explain what makes them worthy of this list, but async.js is just, "Async utilities for node and the browser" which is, while immensely useful, doesn't change JavaScript in a way that is shared by other items on the list.

Mikeb85• 13 years ago

I think the reason so many languages compile to JS, is that you essentially get to play with and learn a new language, and it's guilt free. Usually you need to choose between technologies - JVM or .NET, Python or Ruby, HTML5/Canvas or Flash, etc... With compile to JS languages, you're never forced to make that choice, if you ever get bored of a language you just compile it into JS and continue with your life.

Right now I'm having a lot of fun playing with Haxe and OpenFL/Lime (formerly NME). Being able to create an app with the Flash-like API and compile it, without modifications for HTML5/Flash/Windows/Linux/Mac/Android/iOS/Tizen natively (!!) feels like some sort of unholy hack. Not to mention it's other abilities (compile to everything from JS to Java, C# and C++).

Grue3• 13 years ago

A rare instance where compiled code is actually slower than before "compilation".

joubert• 13 years ago

Nice. I am currently working on providing primitives in JavaScript for writing async code without callbacks or chained functions. Added a link (http://jspipe.org) to that page.

List of languages that compile to JS

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