3 ms·

I have to confess that after read through the Dart specs, all I could think was "meh". Google had a chance to throw their weight behind some powerful language a

by Ovid 14y ago

I have to confess that after read through the Dart specs, all I could think was "meh". Google had a chance to throw their weight behind some powerful language advancements, but all I saw was a boring Java/Javascript hybrid. And given that Dart will never be natively embedded in Safari or IE, it's going to be very hard to get traction on it. I suspect that's why you haven't seen many projects in Dart.

kyrra 14y ago
Agreed, the language syntax itself is very boring. Listening to talks from their language designers, I think they are even annoyed a little that they can't do more interesting things with the syntax. I've been following dart for a while now, and here's the feel I get from the language: * Dart's goal is not to explore exciting new syntax, it's about giving developers a language that can quickly start being productive on. * Cleaning up a lot of the messy syntax that exist in Javascript today. * Be able to easily and efficiently compile to Javascript. This seems to be the reason for a lot of the language syntax decisions. * Provide a full development experience (language, tools, ui, etc...) out of the box.
- lvivski 14y ago
  Dart syntax is familiar and it's a plus, you don't have to learn new syntax quirks.
- tadfisher 14y ago
  A very important feature is class-based object orientation, which the vast majority of developers are familiar with, thus it is more natural to use compared to prototype-based OO. Also, tool-visible types allow for better/easier tool-assisted development, something that has been a stumbling block even in the most monstrous of IDEs. For example, ever ctrl-clicked a function assigned to a var in Eclipse?
  - kyrra 14y ago
    yup. No prototype inheritance is huge, plus having a single entry point for an app is huge. These 2 provide a lot of VM optimization opportunities.
ahoge 14y ago
Dart is supposed to be "boring". Their intention was to create a language which is familiar to anyone who used Java, C#, AS3, JavaScript, or any other C-like language in the past. From my own experience, I'd say that this strategy worked exactly as intended. I was able to write code after skimming through some of the examples. To be honest, I only bothered with Dart because it used C-like syntax. Also, it compiles to surprisingly fast JavaScript [1]. Support by all browser vendors isn't necessary. You can use it either way. The lack of support really doesn't change anything. You'd use a build/deploy script either way, wouldn't you? [1] https://plus.google.com/u/0/114943499066504644906/posts/WXNLUoX95Ri https://plus.google.com/u/0/114943499066504644906/posts/WXNL...

by Ovid 14y ago

kyrra 14y ago

Agreed, the language syntax itself is very boring. Listening to talks from their language designers, I think they are even annoyed a little that they can't do more interesting things with the syntax. I've been following dart for a while now, and here's the feel I get from the language: * Dart's goal is not to explore exciting new syntax, it's about giving developers a language that can quickly start being productive on. * Cleaning up a lot of the messy syntax that exist in Javascript today. * Be able to easily and efficiently compile to Javascript. This seems to be the reason for a lot of the language syntax decisions. * Provide a full development experience (language, tools, ui, etc...) out of the box.

lvivski 14y ago
Dart syntax is familiar and it's a plus, you don't have to learn new syntax quirks.
tadfisher 14y ago
A very important feature is class-based object orientation, which the vast majority of developers are familiar with, thus it is more natural to use compared to prototype-based OO. Also, tool-visible types allow for better/easier tool-assisted development, something that has been a stumbling block even in the most monstrous of IDEs. For example, ever ctrl-clicked a function assigned to a var in Eclipse?
- kyrra 14y ago
  yup. No prototype inheritance is huge, plus having a single entry point for an app is huge. These 2 provide a lot of VM optimization opportunities.

ahoge 14y ago

Dart is supposed to be "boring". Their intention was to create a language which is familiar to anyone who used Java, C#, AS3, JavaScript, or any other C-like language in the past. From my own experience, I'd say that this strategy worked exactly as intended. I was able to write code after skimming through some of the examples. To be honest, I only bothered with Dart because it used C-like syntax. Also, it compiles to surprisingly fast JavaScript [1]. Support by all browser vendors isn't necessary. You can use it either way. The lack of support really doesn't change anything. You'd use a build/deploy script either way, wouldn't you? [1] https://plus.google.com/u/0/114943499066504644906/posts/WXNLUoX95Ri https://plus.google.com/u/0/114943499066504644906/posts/WXNL...