Initially I didn't see the value in React. I thought that the whole virtual DOM compiling on every change was a waste of resources instead of just doing the change itself directly.

But as it turns out it's a great abstraction worth using for the right things (not every part of the web) and one of those are Single Page Applications.

A lot of comments here are about people linking JSX instead of React and that's a good abstraction too. In Mint (https://mint-lang.com/) I'm trying to create a language for SPAs and having HTML syntax helps.

Check out Mint (https://mint-lang.com), it's s language where everything is built in: small to mid size projects can be built without any third party dependencies and JS interop is easy.

Thank you for building this.

> The pessimistic one is that most of what needed building gets built, and the remaining work fits in fewer hands.

I don't think that's true, mainly because if it were true it would have happened a long time ago. We will never settle on one version of a thing (let it be messaging, recipes, notes, image galleries, etc...). New variants emerge over time, the only thing AI does is accelerate this.

There are countless games and applications in the app stores these days. Almost all of them are money losing ventures. The vast majority of these variants are going to go extinct and earn negative revenue for its creator. The big problem comes in when creators stop running into any variants that can earn them a living at all.

>We will never settle on one version of a thing

This depends on how well a monopoly can fit into the equation.

>We will never settle on one version of a thing (recipes)

Here is an example of missing the whole elephant because you're looking to close. While the number of recipes are booming, the number of food distribution companies has collapsed into just a few mega corporations. And those corps are massively controlling the prices all of us must pay.

You can't make money playing a guitar and warbling into a microphone anymore either. Hasn't stopped my local bar from hosting local musicians who are in it for the craft.

I don't think that's really an apt comparison. Most software people who are in it purely for the craft are deep in open source, and open source doesn't necessarily build the most user-friendly tooling. If it did, you'd see apps like GIMP seriously challenging Adobe, etc. So much of the software layer built for enterprise and consumers relied on VC. I can only speak for myself, but I'd be willing to bet that 95+% of developers I've worked with would not build user-facing software for free. We are all in it for the money.

I'm willing to be that 95% of developers you've worked with are, but how representative that is of the broader group is indeterminate. Apple is full of developers who give a shit about design, or at least, had to pass an interview that pretends that they pretend to give a predend shit... look, at some level you just have to buy that people are who they say they are. Even if you're in it for the money, you're going to conferences and speaking about it to people, so it's you.

Let's hope you're right, but you might be underestimating the "$200 per month (robo)engineer can only do it like this, therefore this is the way to do it" factor.

It's perfectly fine to allow if in tags (the compiler can figure it out). In Mint you can do that no problem: https://mint-lang.com/sandbox/6lnZHiG8LVRJqA

    component Main {
      fun render : Html {
        <div>
          if true {
            <div>"Hello World!"</div>
          } else {
            <div>"False"</div>
          }
        </div>
      }
    }

It's nice to see that we are converging on the same syntax I came up for Mint (https://mint-lang.com) 8 years ago (feels strange to write it down). I saw Ripple some time ago its syntax has the same structure more or less (component, style, render, state, etc...)

Very interesting! Have you considered posting this to HN (again - looks like it was when it first came out & 2 years ago)?

Yes! I'm very close to releasing 1.0 and I'm planning on doing it then.

:O this is so cool how did I never run into it! The most different SPA framework I had seen so far was ELM.

I think this is the first time I am seeing Mint. Really nice! I love the syntax.

Thanks for putting these lists together. When Mint reaches 1.0 I'll use the same format to present it here.

Ah I missed the previous threads about your language, because they didn't follow the title convention I was searching for. I've put https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17161533 (the first one) in there now. It would be better if it just said "The Mint Programming Language" though (and I'm not above fudging that retroactively!)

Mint – language created for writing single-page applications - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36914888 - July 2023 (11 comments)

Mint: A programming language for writing single page applications - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22246615 - Feb 2020 (194 comments)

Mint-lang: a language for the front-end web - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17161533 - May 2018 (106 comments)

Thanks :)

I didn't make those threads, so the title choices were mine. I'll do a proper Show HN with 1.0 sometime, maybe with can switch it with that then.

*weren't

I've used Mint in one of my apps, I'm a fan! Looking forward to that 1.0 release whenever it happens.

It's very similar to Mint (https://mint-lang.com/) which I'm building for some time now.

Looking at the samples, it seems Ripple is going the same direction as Mint:

- explicit component definitions

- inlined control flow in HTML tags

- component based styling

- explicit white space handling for element content

- syntax for setting references

I'm not sure why they based it on TypeScript instead of creating a new language completely, since there are a lot of new syntax added (and they have their own extension as well).

If you are looking for something similar, give Mint a try, it has a lot more features, and I'm looking to release 1.0 in the near future.

Obvious reason would be that all major js libraries have ts definitions available now and if the language is TS based they can all be used without compromising with type-safety.

Would mint be a good fit if I want to make something like https://winxp.vercel.app/ ?

I think so, yes.

I'm still waiting to evaluate Zed because I work with/on my programming language which has LSP Semantic Highlighting, but Zed doesn't https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/39539 once it's merged I'll give it a go because it looks like a modern Sublime Text (which I still use). I just wish they would focus on basic editor features instead of adding AI and other non-related features.

I switched from Sublime Text (still keep for navigating huge files).

But I love the thought put into Zed and it looks great (this is important to me).

I don't use their AI features but it does come in handy when I need an quick alternate answer or perspective. I use Claude Code in a separate terminal.

Happy New Year from Budapest!