Hi,
First of all, I love my Roku box and appreciate the fact that you've added an SDK.
I'd like to propose adding additional language support to the SDK. Specifically, I'd like to recommend using Javascript or Lua .
Reasons:
- Developers should not need to learn a new language to develop for a new device.
- Developers incur significant overhead when attempting to write Roku plugins, which slows adoption of the Roku SDK.
- Since Brightscript is a custom language, developmental toolchains either do not exist or were written by Roku staff (the linker, the compiler, any Lint or analysis tools, etc). Using a popular language would allow bootstrapping of existing tools.
What I'd like to see is Javascript support. Developers would write in Javascript, which could be compiled to support the Roku box using
v8. This would allow developers who know Javascript to use their skills to write Roku plugins, while letting Roku concentrate on API development. Additionally, this would allow web-based mocking tools to be created (such as a web-based emulator).
Note that when I talk about Javascript, I do not meant Javascript as typically used on the web. I'm referring to the base language, which would not support the DOM or any of the window.* or document.* objects. Roku could add or remove functionality as necessary (for example, Javascript's regular expression library might not be sufficiently performant and could be left unsupported by the library).
