3 ms·

Except they are "only" trying to replace perhaps the single most ingrained language of all time, that is, Javascript in browsers. And I'll warrant that the more

Except they are "only" trying to replace perhaps the single most ingrained language of all time, that is, Javascript in browsers. And I'll warrant that the more ingrained a language is, the more it's contender needs to be exciting, and yes, even hyped, and catter to developer motivation and happiness. For pure technical gains, I think there's huge resistance to be found. Having said that, I think they could find some success in, say, making Chrome run Dart natively (as well as Javascript for the time being) and then getting other more hyped languages to compile to Dart.

batista 14y ago
>Except they are "only" trying to replace perhaps the single most ingrained language of all time, that is, Javascript in browsers. And I'll warrant that the more ingrained a language is, the more it's contender needs to be exciting, and yes, even hyped, and catter to developer motivation and happiness. True, they need "hype", but exciting in the way asked above just throws most developers off of it. No exciting language ever gained a stronghold in the market. Even Lisp in the AI/Lisp Machines era and Smalltalk in its heyday were marginal. <b>Having said that, I think they could find some success in, say, making Chrome run Dart natively (as well as Javascript for the time being) and then getting other more hyped languages to compile to Dart.</b> They do have Dart run natively in Dartium, a special Chrome version IIRC. But obviously I can't see Apple/Mozilla/MS playing along and adding Dart to their browsers. One way they could gain ground would be to use the server side advantage (since they want Dart to work on the server too): Make a better Node.js like environment with Dart, with no callback-spaghetti and single-thread issues, and add a top-notch web framework for it, suitable for both Rails and client-rendering style web development. Add MySQL/PostgreSQL and Mongo drivers. I think something like that will catch on like wildfire.
- goldfeld 14y ago
  A strong, google-funded full-stack framework competitor to Meteor sounds like a good thing to the evolution of JavaScript (EDIT: evolution of browser rendering languages) everywhere. They're getting it right with Angular, so yeah I agree that could work out.
azakai 14y ago
> Having said that, I think they could find some success in, say, making Chrome run Dart natively That would fragment the web, just like if Microsoft made IE run .NET natively (or, like Microsoft made IE run ActiveX). So hopefully that won't happen.
sethladd 14y ago
One of Dart's goals is to become a compelling and useful option for developers of many backgrounds to write awesome modern web apps. Compiling to JavaScript is crucial, as JavaScript is the lingua franca of the web. Embedding a Dart VM into a browser gives even greater performance for Dart apps and support for features such as snapshots (a quicker startup from a serialized binary heap).

batista 14y ago

>Except they are "only" trying to replace perhaps the single most ingrained language of all time, that is, Javascript in browsers. And I'll warrant that the more ingrained a language is, the more it's contender needs to be exciting, and yes, even hyped, and catter to developer motivation and happiness. True, they need "hype", but exciting in the way asked above just throws most developers off of it. No exciting language ever gained a stronghold in the market. Even Lisp in the AI/Lisp Machines era and Smalltalk in its heyday were marginal. <b>Having said that, I think they could find some success in, say, making Chrome run Dart natively (as well as Javascript for the time being) and then getting other more hyped languages to compile to Dart.</b> They do have Dart run natively in Dartium, a special Chrome version IIRC. But obviously I can't see Apple/Mozilla/MS playing along and adding Dart to their browsers. One way they could gain ground would be to use the server side advantage (since they want Dart to work on the server too): Make a better Node.js like environment with Dart, with no callback-spaghetti and single-thread issues, and add a top-notch web framework for it, suitable for both Rails and client-rendering style web development. Add MySQL/PostgreSQL and Mongo drivers. I think something like that will catch on like wildfire.

goldfeld 14y ago
A strong, google-funded full-stack framework competitor to Meteor sounds like a good thing to the evolution of JavaScript (EDIT: evolution of browser rendering languages) everywhere. They're getting it right with Angular, so yeah I agree that could work out.

azakai 14y ago

> Having said that, I think they could find some success in, say, making Chrome run Dart natively That would fragment the web, just like if Microsoft made IE run .NET natively (or, like Microsoft made IE run ActiveX). So hopefully that won't happen.

sethladd 14y ago

One of Dart's goals is to become a compelling and useful option for developers of many backgrounds to write awesome modern web apps. Compiling to JavaScript is crucial, as JavaScript is the lingua franca of the web. Embedding a Dart VM into a browser gives even greater performance for Dart apps and support for features such as snapshots (a quicker startup from a serialized binary heap).