4 ms·

> 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 fe

by 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 ago
Dart is Google's Silverlight.
- michaelwww 14y ago
  ActionScript/Flash and .NET/SilverLight require a plugin, with Dart the "plugin" is optional.
  - ttrreeww 14y ago
    It's called the Dart Runtime which is not included in non Google browsers.
    - dragonwriter 14y ago
      Except: 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
  A couple of clarifications: * Dart compiles to JavaScript, Silverlight did not. * Dart is actively being developed, Silverlight is not. * Dart does not require any plugins, Silverlight did. * Dart natively supports the DOM, Silverlight did not. [disclaimer: I work on the Dart team]
dragonwriter 14y ago
> 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. I didn't think even Chrome bundles Dart, yet, either; for native Dart (as opposed to compiled-to-JS Dart), Google distributes (both separately and with the Dart SDK) a special Chromium-based browser with the Dart VM integrated called "Dartium". For all practical short-term purposes, Dart is another compiled-to-JavaScript language, and is no more plagued by multiple backends than JavaScript (which, after all, runs on multiple different engines from different vendors) is. And I don't see how having an optimized VM in development makes it less attractive than compiled-to-JS languages that don't have that. > 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). I would think the fact that Dart is -- rather overtly -- immature and rapidly changing would be a much bigger barrier to adoption by relatively conservative, need-something-that-works-now, web developers. I don't see how having an experimental optimized VM available-but-not-widely-available-to-end-users factors in to making it less attractive to web developers.
- stesch 14y ago
  Dart has special data types for the VM. They clearly want to target the VM for fast applications that aren't very usable compiled to JavaScript.
  - dragonwriter 14y ago
    > Dart has special data types for the VM. It has optional types, like many compiled-to-JS languages (as lack of declared types is one of the motivations for such languages.) I don't know what you mean by "special data types for the VM". Can you provide some examples? > They clearly want to target the VM for fast applications that aren't very usable compiled to JavaScript. Obviously, they think that the VM will provide some benefit over compiling to JS or they wouldn't make the effort of building the VM. But, unless you can give a reason to believe that they are crippling the performance of Dart-to-JS code to push the VM, I can't see why that would be a problem.

by pnt 14y ago

ttrreeww 14y ago

Dart is Google's Silverlight.

michaelwww 14y ago
ActionScript/Flash and .NET/SilverLight require a plugin, with Dart the "plugin" is optional.
- ttrreeww 14y ago
  It's called the Dart Runtime which is not included in non Google browsers.
  - dragonwriter 14y ago
    Except: 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
A couple of clarifications: * Dart compiles to JavaScript, Silverlight did not. * Dart is actively being developed, Silverlight is not. * Dart does not require any plugins, Silverlight did. * Dart natively supports the DOM, Silverlight did not. [disclaimer: I work on the Dart team]

dragonwriter 14y ago

> 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. I didn't think even Chrome bundles Dart, yet, either; for native Dart (as opposed to compiled-to-JS Dart), Google distributes (both separately and with the Dart SDK) a special Chromium-based browser with the Dart VM integrated called "Dartium". For all practical short-term purposes, Dart is another compiled-to-JavaScript language, and is no more plagued by multiple backends than JavaScript (which, after all, runs on multiple different engines from different vendors) is. And I don't see how having an optimized VM in development makes it less attractive than compiled-to-JS languages that don't have that. > 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). I would think the fact that Dart is -- rather overtly -- immature and rapidly changing would be a much bigger barrier to adoption by relatively conservative, need-something-that-works-now, web developers. I don't see how having an experimental optimized VM available-but-not-widely-available-to-end-users factors in to making it less attractive to web developers.

stesch 14y ago
Dart has special data types for the VM. They clearly want to target the VM for fast applications that aren't very usable compiled to JavaScript.
- dragonwriter 14y ago
  > Dart has special data types for the VM. It has optional types, like many compiled-to-JS languages (as lack of declared types is one of the motivations for such languages.) I don't know what you mean by "special data types for the VM". Can you provide some examples? > They clearly want to target the VM for fast applications that aren't very usable compiled to JavaScript. Obviously, they think that the VM will provide some benefit over compiling to JS or they wouldn't make the effort of building the VM. But, unless you can give a reason to believe that they are crippling the performance of Dart-to-JS code to push the VM, I can't see why that would be a problem.