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Finally google will have a proprietary language to compete on a level playing field with Apple without having to worry about web standards.

mythz 13y ago
By "proprietary language" do you mean fully open sourced with a liberal patent covenant and a well documented hosting API that as a goal encourages its adoption and contributions, that's being developed in the open and is in the process of being standardized once released?
- embolism 13y ago
  Yes, because none of that will have any effect on Google's control over what runtime goes into Chrome and their ability to make unilateral decisions about the language's future. It's fully owned and controlled by Google.
  - spankalee 13y ago
    But standardization, a strong goal of the project founders, will.
    - embolism 13y ago
      If Google submits Dart to an independent standards body that has a governance model that includes other interested parties e.g. Mozilla, Apple, W3C, and doesn't make Google king, and if Google agrees to adhere to the standard and not just rush ahead with a de-facto standard reference implementation that people write anyway to because it's in Chrome, and if other browsers widely integrate Dart, then it would no longer be proprietary. Until these things are achieved then it is absolutely proprietary and claims to the contrary are based on a PR position about a possible future that could easily be de-prioritized or never come about. I could easily see developers jump on board this 'soon to be standardized' language, only to see an announcement that 'Other vendors didn't join up, so we have been forced to go it alone' from Google.
  - mythz 13y ago
    > their ability to make unilateral decisions about the language's future So just like every language being developed today then? At the moment the goal of the Dart language is to provide a structured language to help create large scale web applications with much faster Starup and runtime performance that's being developed by experienced language designers with input from skilled VM engineers who were on teams that's brought the worlds fastest language VMs: i.e. StrongTalk's VM (later acquired by Sun to form Java's fast Hotspot VM), V8 and are now working on Dart's VM. Google's goal for Dart is to provide a better language to develop, faster and richer web applications - I'm not sure which of their goals are harmed from being a Google Sponsored project. Note the Dart team frequently asks for feedback on the Dart Mailing list and invites features and language enhancements on the projects issues list: https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/list https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/list
    - embolism 13y ago
      No - not like JavaScript. None of Google's goals are harmed by Dart. That's the point - it's there to serve their goals by diverting effort away from improving JavaScript - a project that benefits everyone towards supporting Dart - a project that benefits Google.
      - mythz 13y ago
        The purpose of a language isn't to divert effort away from a language it compiles to as a first-class concept. That's actually not a goal, that's just someones cynical view of a potential side-effect when trying to invent a new more productive language for the web without JS deficiencies, with better language semantics, faster start-up and predictable run-time performance. In Lars and Kasper Google I/O talk, they explain that V8 has become an extremely complex code-base, now weighing more than 500k LOC, with advanced compiler tricks to achieve the leading performance it currently has. The V8 designers think they're nearing the max performance ceiling possible with JS where it's unlikely they'll be able to get a further 2x perf improvement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huawCRlo9H4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huawCRlo9H4 Which is in contrast to Dart which was developed with the input of VM engineers, is a much smaller and simpler code-base that is able to support proper classes, real integers and SIMD support which is already capable of delivering 10x faster startup times (with snapshots) and 2x faster and more predictable runtime performance which is still in beta and has yet to receive anywhere near the engineering effort V8 has. Google is big enough to attempt 2 competing strategies to improve web development and performance, i.e. a faster JavaScript being led by the Standards committee that's enhancing JavaScript at a comittees pace and by introducing a completely new language for the web built from the ground up to be faster, structured and more consistent: http://infrequently.org/2011/09/google-the-future-of-javascript/ http://infrequently.org/2011/09/google-the-future-of-javascr...
melling 13y ago
Why the comparison with Apple? Apple doesn't use a proprietary language.
- embolism 13y ago
  Apple is in complete control over its version of Objective-C, the runtime, and the libraries. The fact that parts of this are contributed to open source projects makes it no less proprietary.
  - melling 13y ago
    Apple didn't invent Objective-C. It was adopted by NeXT 25 years ago. It wasn't used to create lock-in. Of course Apple is going to improve the language. It was badly in need of some improvements. They are the only company that has an interest. I don't think they keep any changes locked up at Apple in order to prevent other companies from adopting it. In fact, it would be great if someone got it working well on Android.
mark_l_watson 13y ago
Except: it compiles to JavaScript and you deploy that. When I was playing with Dart, I think it worked fine with Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

mythz 13y ago

By "proprietary language" do you mean fully open sourced with a liberal patent covenant and a well documented hosting API that as a goal encourages its adoption and contributions, that's being developed in the open and is in the process of being standardized once released?

embolism 13y ago
Yes, because none of that will have any effect on Google's control over what runtime goes into Chrome and their ability to make unilateral decisions about the language's future. It's fully owned and controlled by Google.
- spankalee 13y ago
  But standardization, a strong goal of the project founders, will.
  - embolism 13y ago
    If Google submits Dart to an independent standards body that has a governance model that includes other interested parties e.g. Mozilla, Apple, W3C, and doesn't make Google king, and if Google agrees to adhere to the standard and not just rush ahead with a de-facto standard reference implementation that people write anyway to because it's in Chrome, and if other browsers widely integrate Dart, then it would no longer be proprietary. Until these things are achieved then it is absolutely proprietary and claims to the contrary are based on a PR position about a possible future that could easily be de-prioritized or never come about. I could easily see developers jump on board this 'soon to be standardized' language, only to see an announcement that 'Other vendors didn't join up, so we have been forced to go it alone' from Google.
- mythz 13y ago
  > their ability to make unilateral decisions about the language's future So just like every language being developed today then? At the moment the goal of the Dart language is to provide a structured language to help create large scale web applications with much faster Starup and runtime performance that's being developed by experienced language designers with input from skilled VM engineers who were on teams that's brought the worlds fastest language VMs: i.e. StrongTalk's VM (later acquired by Sun to form Java's fast Hotspot VM), V8 and are now working on Dart's VM. Google's goal for Dart is to provide a better language to develop, faster and richer web applications - I'm not sure which of their goals are harmed from being a Google Sponsored project. Note the Dart team frequently asks for feedback on the Dart Mailing list and invites features and language enhancements on the projects issues list: https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/list https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/list
  - embolism 13y ago
    No - not like JavaScript. None of Google's goals are harmed by Dart. That's the point - it's there to serve their goals by diverting effort away from improving JavaScript - a project that benefits everyone towards supporting Dart - a project that benefits Google.
    - mythz 13y ago
      The purpose of a language isn't to divert effort away from a language it compiles to as a first-class concept. That's actually not a goal, that's just someones cynical view of a potential side-effect when trying to invent a new more productive language for the web without JS deficiencies, with better language semantics, faster start-up and predictable run-time performance. In Lars and Kasper Google I/O talk, they explain that V8 has become an extremely complex code-base, now weighing more than 500k LOC, with advanced compiler tricks to achieve the leading performance it currently has. The V8 designers think they're nearing the max performance ceiling possible with JS where it's unlikely they'll be able to get a further 2x perf improvement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huawCRlo9H4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huawCRlo9H4 Which is in contrast to Dart which was developed with the input of VM engineers, is a much smaller and simpler code-base that is able to support proper classes, real integers and SIMD support which is already capable of delivering 10x faster startup times (with snapshots) and 2x faster and more predictable runtime performance which is still in beta and has yet to receive anywhere near the engineering effort V8 has. Google is big enough to attempt 2 competing strategies to improve web development and performance, i.e. a faster JavaScript being led by the Standards committee that's enhancing JavaScript at a comittees pace and by introducing a completely new language for the web built from the ground up to be faster, structured and more consistent: http://infrequently.org/2011/09/google-the-future-of-javascript/ http://infrequently.org/2011/09/google-the-future-of-javascr...

melling 13y ago

Why the comparison with Apple? Apple doesn't use a proprietary language.

embolism 13y ago
Apple is in complete control over its version of Objective-C, the runtime, and the libraries. The fact that parts of this are contributed to open source projects makes it no less proprietary.
- melling 13y ago
  Apple didn't invent Objective-C. It was adopted by NeXT 25 years ago. It wasn't used to create lock-in. Of course Apple is going to improve the language. It was badly in need of some improvements. They are the only company that has an interest. I don't think they keep any changes locked up at Apple in order to prevent other companies from adopting it. In fact, it would be great if someone got it working well on Android.

mark_l_watson 13y ago

Except: it compiles to JavaScript and you deploy that. When I was playing with Dart, I think it worked fine with Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.