There’s an interesting article called “[Building desktop Linux
\napplications with JavaScript](http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/articles\/paedia\/javascript-gtk-bindings.ars?bub)” By Ryan Paul, January 19, 2009.<\/p>\n
I didn’t immediately understand the vision. Don’t we already have
\nPython, Ruby, Java, C++ and Perl bindings for Gnome? Yes, we do. So why
\nwould we add JavaScript to the mix? Or any other scripting language?<\/p>\n
The best way to think about it is Firefox plugins, like Greasemonkey,
\nthat actually modify the web browser to give you a new experience.
\nFirefox extensions are written in JavaScript. JavaScript has hooks into
\nthe application (Firefox) to manipulate it.<\/p>\n
Gnome hackers want to do the same thing for Gnome. Not only could you
\nwrite Gnome application in JavaScript, you could extend a Gnome
\napplication using JavaScript, no matter what language it was written in.<\/p>\n
Another way to think about it is this: When most people think of Java,
\nthey don’t think of the language. They think of the platform — the
\nlibraries that are shipped with the language (networking, database
\nconnectivity, etc.). The same is true for Python, Perl, and Ruby.<\/p>\n
The goal is to us an embeddable language to tweak the Gnome platform,
\nnot to use a platform (like Java, Python or Perl) to tweak Gnome. When
\nthey embed a language into Gnome, application developers will use the
\nGnome platform way of doing networking, instead of doing it the Java
\nlibrary way. They will use the Gnome way of opening file picker, not the
\nJava library way. They will use the Gnome way of doing HTTP, not the
\nPython or the Java or the Perl way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s an interesting article called “[Building desktop Linux applications with JavaScript](http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/articles\/paedia\/javascript-gtk-bindings.ars?bub)” By Ryan Paul, January 19, 2009. I didn’t immediately understand the vision. Don’t we already have Python, Ruby, Java, C++ and Perl bindings for Gnome? Yes, we do. So why would we add JavaScript to the mix? Or any other scripting language? The best … <\/p>\n