Dart's lack of popularity is indeed in spite of the Google backing. I basically see two reasons. First, though Lars Bak has an impressive pedigree, Strongtalk a

Dart's lack of popularity is indeed in spite of the Google backing. I basically see two reasons. First, though Lars Bak has an impressive pedigree, Strongtalk and V8 aren't as well-known as Plan 9 and Unix. Moreover, rightly or wrongly, Dart had the appearance of "Google's attempt to kill JS", which neither endeared it to Web developers (who were riding a wave of JavaScript hype at the time) nor to other browser manufacturers (who were growing increasingly distrustful of Google's initiatives).