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> The former obviously needs a proper scripting language. I wonder, have there been any experiments in major browsers to execute non-javascript code?

• moron4hire 12y ago
  IE was able to use whatever was installed on Windows, basically from the very beginning, but VBScript was the only one that was commonly used (though I think there was even a version of Lisp that worked). Mozilla (back before there was Firefox) had limited support for VBScript because of this. I remember being terrified in 1998 that there was a good chance VBScript would take off. I think I even had to make a site in VBScript to satisfy a client as late as 2006 or 2007. Later versions of IE were able to run .NET code, which was what SilverLight was all about. So imagine that, it was basically just MS leading the charge, which is probably why we only have JavaScript now.
• scrollaway 12y ago
  Well, up until recently, Google wanted to add a Dart VM to Chrome. I think they actually did for a while, but you had to use a flag to enable it? (I actually wish they'd have gone ahead with adding the VM... I guess the utopia will be for another day)
• dragonwriter 12y ago
  > I wonder, have there been any experiments in major browsers to execute non-javascript code? Chrome currently supports NaCl, which allows running native-compiled non-JS code in the browser, but doesn't provide direct DOM access. A number of technologies have been used to provide non-JS code in browsers through plug-in APIs. And IE has directly supported, at different times, a number of non-JS languages in the browser as well. So, yes, and not just "experiments".