this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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It's probably the best scripting language, especially for developers of C-style languages. Python has weird syntax and is slow, Lua is really fast but also has weird syntax. JavaScript looks pretty much like C syntax wise. It's also possible to use a wide range of existing JavaScript projects to make extension development less burdensome
The JS bindings to GTK4 (GJS) are complete, AFAIK; & allow for facilities like
Gtk.Expression
which the Python bindings still don't have& they've made rapid progress in a short time. The online documentation that's available is also getting really good.
Though I'm not sure why extensions have to be in JS, since JS is acting as a 'glue language' to the GObject bindings anyway. Isn't an extension just a GTK application that talks to specific DBus interfaces?
I suspect that the issue boils down to not-so-well-fleshed-out (to put it politely) dbus interfaces on GTK apps. Probably GJS has an easier time setting/sending messages & signals over DBus, so that's why extensions are in JS.
Many languages have well functioning bindings to GObject, Gdk, etc.; some are more complete than others (lua's (lgi) are trailing behind -- but still, you can do things like subscribe to a dbus_proxy in an embedded lua that lives inside vim or neovim, and send-receive messages with that) & some even come with good documentation, tutorials, etc.