As you probably know, I’m now doing all my software development in just two languages – C++ in the embedded world and JavaScript in the rest. Well, sort of, anyway:

• The C++ conventions I use are very much watered down from where C++ has been going for some time (with all the STL machinery). I am deliberately not using RTTI, exceptions, namespaces, or templates, because they add far too much complexity.
• Ehm… C++ templates are actually extremely powerful and would in fact be a big help in reducing code overhead on embedded processors, but: 1) they require a very advanced understanding of C++, 2) that would make my code even more impenetrable to others trying to understand it all, and 3) it can be very hard to understand and fix templating-related compiler error messages.
• I also use C++ virtual functions sparingly, because they tend to generate more code, and what’s worse: VTables use up RAM, a scarce resource on the ATmega / ATtiny!
• As for programming in JavaScript: I don’t, really. I write code in a dialect called CoffeeScript, which then gets compiled to JavaScript on-the-fly. The main reason is that it fixes some warts in the JavaScript syntax, and keeps the good parts. It’s also delightfully concise, although I admit that you have to learn to read it before you can appreciate the effect it has on making the essence of the logic stand out better.
• There is an incredible book called CoffeeScript Ristretto by Reginald Braithwaite, which IMO is a must read. There is also a site called ristrettolo.gy which appears to have the entire content of that book online (although I find the PDF version more readable). Written in the same playful style as The Little Schemer, so be prepared to get your mind twisted by the (deep and valuable) concepts presented.
• To those who dismiss today’s JavaScript, and hence CoffeeScript, on the basis of its syntax or semantics, I can only point to an article by Paul Graham, in which he describes The Blub Paradox. There is (much) more to it than meets the eye.
• In my opinion, CoffeeScript + Node.js bring together the best ideas from Scheme (functions), Ruby (notation), Python (indentation), and Tcl (events).
• If you’re craving for more background, check out How I Learned To Enjoy JavaScript and some articles it links to, such as JS: The Right Way and Idiomatic JavaScript.

I’m quite happy with the above choices now, even though I still feel frustratingly inept at writing CoffeeScript and working with the asynchronous nature and libraries of Node.js – but at every turn, the concepts do “click” – this really feels like the right way to do things, staying away from all the silliness of statically compiled languages and datatypes, threads, and blocking system calls. The Node.js community members have taken some very bold steps, adopted what people found worthwhile in Ruby on Rails and other innovations, and lived through the pain of the all-async nature by coming up with libraries such as Async, as well as other great ones like Underscore, Connect cq. Express, Mocha, and Marked.

I just came across a very nice site about JavaScript, called SuperHero, via this weblog post. Will be going through it soon, to try and improve my understanding and (hopefully) skills. If you like video’s, check out PeepCode, i.e. this one on Node.js + Express + CoffeeScript.

As for the client-side JavaScript framework, I’m using AngularJS. There’s a nice little music player example here, with the JavaScript here, illustrating the general style quite well, IMO.

Isn’t it amazing how much knowledge and tools we have at our fingertips nowadays?

It seems to me that for software technologies and languages to gain solid traction and momentum, it will all come down to how “learnable” things are. Because we all start from scratch at some point. And we all only have so many hours in the day to learn things well. There is this never-ending struggle between picking the tools which are instantly obvious (but perhaps limited in the long rung) vs. picking very advanced tools (which may take too much time to become proficient in). Think BASIC vs. Common Lisp, for example. It gets even worse as the world is moving on – how can anyone decide to “dive in” and go for the deep stuff, when it might all be obsolete by the time the paybacks really set in?

In my case, I want to not only build stuff (could have stayed with Tcl + JeeMon for that), but also take advantage of what others are doing, and – with a bit of luck – come up with something which some of you find attractive enough to build upon and extend. Time will tell whether the choices made will lead there…

One other very interesting new development I’d like to mention in this context, is the Markdown-based Literate Programming now possible with CoffeeScript: see this weblog post by Jeremy Ashkenas, the inventor & implementor of CoffeeScript. I’m currently looking into this, alongside more traditional documentation tools such as Docco and Groc.

Would it make sense to write code for HouseMon as a story? I have no idea, yet…