

Opa: one language for all the web app stack - pistacchio
http://opalang.org/
just found this: seems really promising
======
rawsyntax
Any example apps more complex than typical hello world stuff? I'm interested

~~~
Yoric
We'll publish some in the days&weeks to come. There are also a few additional
details at
[http://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2011/05/23...](http://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/unbreaking-
scalable-web-development-one-loc-at-a-time)

------
thesorrow
The language looks kind of bloated PHP3 with some ajax, no separation of
concerns at all ! I don't think Opa is the solution to the actuals web
development problems. Perhaps we need more great ideas and frameworks
(symfony, rails, etc) from already well established languages and methods.

~~~
Yoric
Separation of concerns is definitely possible. Of course, it's a tad difficult
to demonstrate it on 20 loc, but we'll post longer examples, too.

------
pistacchio
i'm reading the manual right now (<http://opalang.org/public/book_opa.pdf>),
it is a lengthy pdf that also features a wiki, advanced chat, web service
client and server and a reference of the language.

------
Sandman
I don't know. I see it comes with it's own server and database bundled and I
don't really like it. I'd like to choose which server I'm going to deploy and
which db I'm going to use myself. Also, the language just looks kind of
crowded.

~~~
Yoric
> Also, the language just looks kind of crowded.

Would you care to elaborate? Feedback is my second name :) (well,
feedback@opalang.org is my second e-mail address).

~~~
Sandman
Certainly. The language looks crowded to me because it looks like a mixture of
several different languages at once (well, two at least).

You're using a markup language to define the user interface - why? If the
point was to make it look more familiar to web developers then why not just
let them use HTML (as in, HTML separated in it's own document)? I know, the
idea of Opa is to be one language to develop the whole stack, but what you get
here is an incosistent look of your language. If you're going to let the
developers define GUI along with the rest of your logic, it would be much
better if it was done in a consistent way.

On the other hand, one could argue that an XML-like language is better for GUI
development because it lends itself naturally to hierarchical structures
(which a GUI certainly is). And I can actually agree with this. But in that
case, I would definitely keep it separated from the rest of the code. Maybe
this is just me, but I prefer the concept of separation of presentation and
logic.

Usually, one of the best things a web company can do is to not make their
developers wear the hat of a web designer, but instead hire an actual web
designer who knows her job and who can create a great GUI. But I get the
feeling that this person would be very confused if she had to work with Opa.
Let the designers work with what they know best, HTML and CSS, and let the
developers work on creating a logic behind this presentation layer.

So, I hope this comment clarified a bit what I meant when I said that Opa
looks crowded. Of course, these are only my personal views and preferences and
are meant as constructive criticism.

~~~
Yoric
> On the other hand, one could argue that an XML-like language is better for
> GUI development because it lends itself naturally to hierarchical structures
> (which a GUI certainly is). And I can actually agree with this. But in that
> case, I would definitely keep it separated from the rest of the code. Maybe
> this is just me, but I prefer the concept of separation of presentation and
> logic.

Good point. Fortunately, that's a feature we have (and use daily). A bit
harder to present in 20 loc, but we'll work out something.

Thanks for the feedback.

~~~
Sandman
No problem. I wish you all the best in further development of Opa!

