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I feel like Dart's emphasis on a fast but chrome-only vm has hindered it's adoption. I understand their goal, unlike most compile-to-js languages, was a languag
by pnt 14y ago
I feel like Dart's emphasis on a fast but chrome-only vm has hindered it's adoption. I understand their goal, unlike most compile-to-js languages, was a language more amenable to fast implementation. However, I think the initial community reaction would have been more positive if Dart was positioned first as a language that compiled to js, with the added benefit that it runs significantly faster on Chrome.
- michaelwww 14y agoI agree. They stumbled initially because the "hello world" JavaScript output was something huge (17,000 LOC if I remember correctly.) But I think they are recovering nicely and people will notice.
- tyleregeto 14y agoThat was unfortunate, mostly because a single compiler flag brought the code base way down, smaller the JQuery. If I recall correctly, that mistake was from a blogger, not Google, but it caught the bad publicity winds. Somebody was more eager to tear it apart than learn the tools.
- dragonwriter 14y ago> I feel like Dart's emphasis on a fast but chrome-only vm has hindered it's adoption. Dart's VM isn't Chrome-only, its open source, and available both standalone and bundled into Chromium. > However, I think the initial community reaction would have been more positive if Dart was positioned first as a language that compiled to js, with the added benefit that it runs significantly faster on Chrome. Reaction might have been more positive in the short run if it was sold as a on-top-of-JS language rather than part of a long-term plan to build something to replace (or complement) JS as a language for which browsers would have a a built-in, language-specific VM. However, I think that even if initial reaction might have been better with such a response, Google clearly did the right thing by being up front about their vision.
- pnt 14y ago> Dart's VM isn't Chrome-only I meant that dart is chrome-only in practice. I don't know of any other browser vendor that bundles the dart vm, including the few browsers based on chromium like rockmelt or 360. > However, I think that even if initial reaction might have been better with such a response, Google clearly did the right thing by being up front about their vision. I can appreciate Google's directness regarding Dart's intention. However, from a web developer's perspective, Dart's multiple backends is very unappealing. I hesitate to adopt even a language like clojurescript or coffeescript because of debugging barriers and potential bugs in the language's crevices (though these problems are diminishing with things like source map support).
- ttrreeww 14y agoDart is Google's Silverlight.
- michaelwww 14y agoActionScript/Flash and .NET/SilverLight require a plugin, with Dart the "plugin" is optional.
- ttrreeww 14y agoIt's called the Dart Runtime which is not included in non Google browsers.
- dragonwriter 14y agoExcept: 1. The Dart VM isn't included in Google's generally-released browsers, either (it's included in Dartium, the special version of Chromium bundled with the Dart SDK). 2. The Dart VM isn't a plug-in. 3. As Dart compiles to JS, you don't need the Dart VM to run code developed with Dart, you just need a browser that supports JS.
- sethladd 14y ago
- mtgx 14y agoAnything really new would be like that. WebGL was also Firefox-only for a while, until Chrome decided to adopt it. To make them a standard across browsers you either need to make them very popular, and make the others have no choice but adopting it, or collaborating. But the last one seems to happen less and less lately, with all companies.
- michaelwww 14y agoI disagree. There's more cooperation because things are getting more complicated and it's necessary. http://www.webplatform.org/stewards/ http://www.webplatform.org/stewards/