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Comment by jonesb6 | Hacker News Reader

I feel like all these python to javascript transpilers will be used as a crutch for those who know python but not javascript. The problem with that is javascript has spent well over a decade developing tool-chains, conventions, and best practices, to assist in web development. When people start trying to apply python to web development, they throw all that away.

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The idea is to embrace the JS world to the max and not reinvent any wheels. So Transcrypt will cooperate with any existing JS lib. Only personal I code far more efficiently in Python, especially for bigger apps. But (as is elaborated in the docs) that's personal. I've coded quite complicated technical web apps in JS, but somehow it didn't fit me like Python does. For different people that will be different, I guess.

I agree with you as to the language (I just like Python a whole lot better than JS), but I always feel dirty writing in a non-native language, not to mention the pretty big commitment one makes when choosing a transpiler.

In Transcrypt's case, the commitment probably isn't that big, since the JS source is pretty readable (and so I can just migrate to that relatively easily if I want to), but it's still a bit of a hack.

That said, it looks like a great project, and I'll definitely give it a try and hopefully use it more widely.

Commitment will require continuity, so in the long run I want it to be independent of me, except for technical input. I plan transfer it to a foundation in a few years. At the same time I'd like to keep a firm hand on the wheel to keep it lean and focused. As for the 'hack' part: I am rather old... And I remember very lively people thought Kernighan and Ritchie C was a hack to avoid programming directly for a processor using a macro assembler.

I seem to remember an post here last week that mentioned how convoluted, overly complex, and downright user unfriendly the JS tool-chains, and conventions have become. It certainly didn't seem like it was written by a Python/Ruby/Java/Go dev either. If I remember correctly it was written by someone in the JS community.

I try to stay away from JS to the extent I am able due to the complexity.

I was thinking more the fact that anything transpiled to Javascript can potentially be run on services like Amazon Lambda via Node.js or other competing services that only run code from a small set of languages.

Don't forget you can use Python on Lambda now :)

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