Haxe

Definition of the Language

Haxe is an open source high-level programming language that can be used to create codes that are executable on multiple platforms. The language works by integrating the common components of all the various platforms such as numeric and text data types and arrays. Haxe also consists of some common file formats as well.

Any program written in Haxe can be compiled into JavaScript, C++ and C# standalone applications. On the other hand, these programs can also be compiled into server side applications for Python, PHP and other platforms. In addition, Haxe is also a complete ActionScript-3 compatible Adobe Flash compiler. This language has the ability to compile a flash format file directly from Haxe code.

Since the language provides a remedy to unite many platforms into a single one, it has become very popular recently. The reason behind this popularity is the shifting preference of users. Various users prefer one platform over another for security and other reasons. To attain the compatibility of the older platform and security of the newer one, developers favor Haxe which provides this two in one functionality.

The popularity of this language has made the user base so wide that an online community is formed where the users interact to find about the new bugs and their solutions.

History of Haxe

The project for the development of Haxe started back in 22 October 2005 by Nicolas Cannasse. The language was initially designed as a successor to the popular ActionScript-2 compiler. The leader of the project, however, had a passion for programming languages and this lead to the creation of an entirely new programming language.

The beta version of the language was then released in 2006 with two targets included. The supported targets were AVM-bytecode and Nicolas’ own Neko virtual machine. Following that, many new targets were added to its library. The language saw many stability issues in its initial versions Haxe 1 and 2. These were resolved with the help of minor stability releases along the time line.

The PHP target was added to the library in July 2008 which increased the value of the language. In addition, the C++ and C# targets were also included in the library in 2009 and 2012 respectively. Therefore, the abilities of the language were improved constantly throughout its period of operation.

The most recent stable release is Haxe 3.3.0-rc1 which was released on 25^th May 2016.

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