Hi there, I've been a long time java user and web dev.

Long story short, i was looking at alt. languages, and without going into too much details I'll say I prefer static lang., simplicity and clean syntax (java / python OK).

Anyhow I found your language and was pretty amazed, I think this language as a near perfect balance and i agree with all the decision you made (syntax & features), better than groovy or Scala for me.

Personally i do not really see the benefit of both JVM & .net VM support, but i guess the more target the better.

Anyway, here are 2 requests / questions: 1) Is there any IDE support (I prefer Netbeans, but Eclipse etc.. would do) .. this is kind of a must have. 2) It's hard to find much infos about Fan, needless to say the name is not helping at all with search engines, have you considered using a different, more unique name ?

Thanks

1) Is there any IDE support (I prefer Netbeans, but Eclipse etc.. would do)

Fan is pretty new, so IDE support is a bit lacking. But hopefully that will take care of itself pretty quickly. Right now there are a couple of options:

• IntelliJ Fan plugin
• Flux
• Una
• Plus take a look under adm for config files for various editors

I really need to create a page in the docs which lists the options.

It's hard to find much infos about Fan, needless to say the name is not helping at all with search engines, have you considered using a different, more unique name ?

Oh boy, that is hotly debated issue - see #457. Although, except for a couple blogs most information is probably on this web site.

The JVM / .NET cross-VM support is an important need for Andy and Brian's business. When you're selling software components, you can only sell them to people who can run them. Fan lets you write the software once and run in both Java and C# environments.

We've recognized the need for amazing IDE support. Currently, we have two projects working on this:

Fan IntelliJ plugin

reFlux For Fan's own Flux text editor

Incremental Compiler Notes A thread on our ideas for creating a unified compiler library for use with IDEs.

We're also aware of the problems the name "Fan" could cause for us. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw an official name change eventually. I'm rooting for Fantom.

Naming the Fan language A thread with hundreds of name suggestions and discussion of each.

Edit - Ninja'd, and I forgot about Una support.

Thanks. I was not saying the JVM/.net support was a bad thing at all, just wondering why it was needed since Java runs on all the platforms .net does as far as i know, but i see what you mean, company policies etc..., it's definitely a plus.

Thanks for the IDE infos.

As for the name, obviously it's not my call, I just thought it might be hurting a bit. but then again Java, Ruby and Python also are coffee, stones and snakes so what do i know :)