I was thinking about that just the other day, who it would be really cool if Go had compile time code execution. I think Jai is making that a very prominent feature of the language.
I don't know if there's ever been a language that was announced 10 years before its first closed beta. I don't even know if having a "closed beta" for a language is something that really happens.
So there's a lot that is different with Jai, it's more like a highly anticipated game than a language.
That's pretty much it. Jonathan Blow's strongly worded negative opinions on most things attracts a certain kind of person who will go on to evangelize.
Yes, I guess. I wouldn't be surprised to see "Jai inspired" languages coming out before Jai itself, since some of the ideas look pretty good.
> How does one even get the compiler and build programs ?
Don't know how seriously you're asking this, but I believe you can apply to use it and if Jon likes your credentials and what you want to try it on he might let you have the compiler for some version. Don't know why he won't just open source it and say it's a early version passive of change, but game development is not usually very open source friendly compared to web dev.