[TxMt] Re: Javascript Reformat Tabs/Indent

[Owen Densmore]

Michael Sheets <mummer at ...> writes:

> Unfortunately this script is a third party script we adapted, they've  
> since switched to writing it in javascript. We don't have any way of  
> running javascript in TextMate so we've been cut off from updates.

Thanks Michael. This is fascinating: our group (redfish.com) has been REALLY
impressed how effective javascript has become. With the 1.7 "pythonic"
extensions, along with its prototype inheritance and server-side use,
javascript is becoming a serious player.

As an example, when doing "web apps" in Google App Engine, its irritating to
have one language on the server (Python), another on the client (JS), and a
third as the communication layer (XML). Moving to JS completely fixes that:
JS on both sides (possibly using Rhino on the server for easy access to Java
classes) and JSON in between. So rather than parsing XML, you just "exec" the
XMLHttpRequest's JSON data and instantly have a native JS data structure.

I'm surprised TM doesn't consider using JS as an extension language. It is
fairly light weigh and has several engines to choose from. Getting Rhino on
the Mac is trivial and may start to be standard due to it being included in
the Java SDK.

So I'd really not try to avoid JS extensions if need be.

Thanks for the clear response,

 -- Owen