Hacker News Reader

Comment by danielvaughn | Hacker News Reader

So I'm a mostly-front-end web developer and I've never used Java. This looks cool; I have a couple questions:

  - How is this running without a java runtime? WASM I assume?
  - Given the performance and accessibility of modern html/css, what's the impetus behind something like this?

View on HN

SnapTea leverages TeaVM https://github.com/konsoletyper/teavm to convert Java to JS. However, SnapKit provides an entire UI framework layer too, enabling app portability to other environments (like the desktop JRE).

TeaVM compiles to JS and includes the basic JRE runtime. Still very lightweight!

Oh that's an interesting approach.

I'm really into these kinds of projects because I'm trying to create a "design language" - a DSL built specifically for UI/UX designers. The idea is to provide them with something kinda like CSS, but using their own vocabulary and mental models. My thinking is that if they can write code describing interfaces in a way that makes sense to them, then all a developer would have to do is wire it up with behavior. No more handoff or recreating UIs from design mockups.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com