This sounds like the start of VC goose chase. They'll never say no but instead just keep you busy on the off chance that you'll hit on something. The only thing that snaps them out of it is the serious prospect of actually making a ton of money with managed risk.
Starting adopting Scala about 18 months ago after much frustration with Java's copious boilerplate. It's like a breath of fresh air and feels in many ways like a dynamic language thanks to type inference. We still use many Java libraries but interfacing with Scala is a breeze. It's got more up-take than Kotlin or Ceylon and I'd say the only decent alternative on the JVM is Clojure but that's a different beast. If you're in a position where your after functional programming on the JVM then consider not waiting years for Java to catch up. Give Scala a go.
Speaking from experience, developing apps with webview on mobile is a minefield. Combining that with jQuery-mobile is akin to throwing a sheep into that minefield.
I've used Scala on several (largish) projects using Eclipse and, thanks to incremental compilation, I've barely noticed compile times never mind had it become an issue.
One can only wonder if this game is going to be too geeky to cross over to significant adoption. I know a lot of people that got into Minecraft that would probably struggle with 0x10c.
While I initially assumed the same, I think 0x10c could possibly evolve into a state that allows even casual players to be able to jump in without getting involved in the geekier aspects.
For instance it be possible to have a Minecraft-esque gameplay mechanic on the planets and, as a player, to acquire through some in-game currency a pre-designed spacecraft created by others. So it could be played as an ordinary space trading game to an extent. In this form it'd be an extension of Minecraft.
For others, I can see guilds being set up around exploitation of the programmable computers onboard spacecraft, with guilds developing their own encrypted communications protocols and attempting to break those of their competitors while still engaging in standard space game warfare with the added extra of electronic warfare. This is far geekier, but it has scope for players of varying skill levels occupying different roles without having to learn how to program the DCPU-16. This would be a sort of EVE Online scenario.
There are other combinations that would be available, given a big enough community, a way to exchange items and the right gameplay dynamic. If Mojang gets that right and sells it right then 0x10c may potentially become a huge hit.
Of course what I've described is ambitious in what's required from the game and there are a million things that could go wrong and make it too hard to make a game with this breadth and flexibility. The odds are against Notch and his team, but if they do succeed I think it'll be epic.
Let's not forget that to an outside observer Minecraft is very geeky and quite confusing. It's a game without any gaming like most are used to, yet over time interest snowballed and non-gamers got into it based on recommendations. I hope the same could happen with 0x10c.
Yup. I think we're going to see this more and more. Companies that generate significant success from outliers, find funky ways to burn through the (substantial) cash by growing and then are unable to repeat their initial success to keep fuelling things. If they can repeat the success then more power to them.
"Lisp has all the visual appeal of oatmeal with fingernail clippings mixed in." - Larry Wall
Considering the general appearance of code for the language he created I'm not sure this quote of his can be taken all that seriously. At worst Perl looks like somebody glued the shift key down and repeatedly head-butted the top row of their keyboard.
(I assume you'll insist that any link I give is ugly. :-) But note that the declarations and parameter specifications are at least as elegant as any other major scripting language I'm aware of.)
Edit: And for the record, I love Perl and Lisp. :-)
Not trolled, probably karma 18 because I've posted only a few times in the years since creating an account. I'm really not intrested in karma/scoring games on sites like HN.
Moose looks really nice and I've nothing against Perl - my language of choice is Scala. I just thought it was a daft thing for Larry to say considering the issues of readability that have been levelled at Perl.
If you consider this, what you've just said is "I think it's daft for Larry not to like the way lisp looks considering some people don't like the way perl looks."
I don't like the way python looks. Does that mean it would be daft for Guido to ever criticise another language's aesthetics? :)
