Web 2.1

I've spent this morning trying to get ASDoc to generate code documentation for the JASPA APIs, with mixed results.
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After a brief exchange of tweets with @jsmag I discover this web development ‘podcast' : webdevgeekly.com, which appears to be run by the same people as jsmag.com. About 9 minutes into the following podcast there is a 2 minute discussion about JASPA. Conveniently just 24 hours after I rescued my site from a hardware crash.

> http://www.webdevgeekly.com/r/www.webdevgeekly.com/mp3/geekly6.mp3

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Not being a marketeer or PR guru I've been struggling to get JASPA's raison d'être across succinctly enough. The elevator pitch is easy; give me a 100 words and your attention and I'll get the message across. Give me 10 words and I'm useless. (more…)

JavaScript language abstraction

I just read this blog article by John Resig, the author of jQuery. The article in general is a criticism of various projects like my very own "JASPA" – A criticism of frameworks that attempt to bring JavaScript into the 21st century by abstracting it into a different language. (more…)

I've set up a wiki on  jaspa.org.uk

I've been trying to find the time to sort out the official site for this project, and a wiki seems like a good format for organizing all the fragmented information that until now I've been posting on this blog. The wiki is likely to be the primary source of information and documentation on the JASPA project.

Check it out: » jaspa.org.uk/wiki/JASPA

I've put together a repository of JASPA source code examples on jaspa.org.uk.

At jaspa.org.uk/examples you can view interactive examples and full, highlighted source code. These examples are going to grow, particularly those in the jaspa.dom package, as this is heavily under construction. When an API feature is enabled an example will be added to this repository to serve as both a reference and a test case.

JASPA.DOM is now an open source project on SourceForge

I've decided to set up an open source project for the jaspa.dom package; it is to be found on SourceForge.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jaspa-dom. It's my first attempt at anything like this, so I'm bumbling around a bit, but the downloads are there and the CVS repository is also up and running. Any developers who are serious about helping develop this API should put a request to join the project on SourceForge.

What?

The main JASPA project is a platform which allows you to write a grown up language (practically identitcal to AS3), and have it compiled into regular JavaScript. If you don't know why this is really cool, then you may as well stop reading now.

japsa.dom is the name of the DOM scripting package which allows you to compile browser-based code with JASPA. It's a completely separate project, and is quite possibly larger and more complex. It is certainly less mature. The JASPA compiler is behaving pretty well, but the API code base is very much incomplete.
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JAS is the language that the JASPA compiler converts to regular JavaScript; it is very similar to ActionScript 3.

The acronym JAS derives from JavaScript/ActionScript, but officially it means "JavaScript; Advanced Syntax". This is partly due to potential trademark problems, and partly to make the distinction that it IS a separate language. The JASPA compiler contains absolutely no Adobe technology, or source code whatsoever.

The JAS syntax is designed to be as close to AS3 (ActionScript) as possible. When I say "as possible", I mean that ideally I'd have made them identical, but for reasons too time-consuming to describe, certain things are in, certain things are out, and certain things behave a bit more like AS2. Ultimately JAS is an extension to the ECMAScript (ES3) standard, proving the kind of OOP enhancements that ActionScript programmers will find very familiar.

I shall digress and describe the similarities and differences between JAS and both ActionScript languages, feature-by-feature.

[ UPDATE: See http://jaspa.org.uk/wiki/JAS_language ]

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Here are some answers to questions that I imagine would be frequently asked about JASPA if anyone was asking any.

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JASPA is a JavaScript cross-compiler written in PHP.

Write robust object-orientated applications in a strongly-typed language (modelled on AS3) and compile it into regular JavaScript to run in a web page, or any other environment that implements a JavaScript engine.

Download JASPA from SourceForge
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=243463

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