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Why We Need WebAssembly: An Interview with Brendan Eich

28 points by ericelliott 11y ago

JS_Cheerleader 11y ago
Yay!
michaelwww 11y ago
It wasn't that long ago the Brendan Eich was still hostile to Dart [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266599] but now he seems to have softened. "Ideally we’ll get things in JavaScript like big integers/bignums that Dart has that JavaScript doesn’t yet" Historically, Mr. Eich has been critical of Dart, and if you follow that thread above he has nothing good to say about Dart, so this is a change, probably brought on by the everyone concluding that the Dart VM has no future in browsers and therefore is not a threat to Javascript. Dart (dartlang) has a lot of nice features, is easy to work with and can increase productivity greatly in some cases. Dart still has a future if they improve the Javascript output as this project is attempting:[https://github.com/dart-lang/dev_compiler https://github.com/dart-lang/dev_compiler] I'm glad Mr. Eich has opened his mind to some of the good things in Dart.
- BrendanEich 11y ago
  Please read the comment to which you link. I was not hostile to Dart, rather I did vent a bit in refuting bogus crediting of Dart for things going into JS in ES6/2015 and ES7/2016. My criticisms of Dart on HN over the years have all been about the way it was developed: in secret first, with an aim to replace JS that could not work, with serious dart2js bugs not in DartVM left to lie for years; and the consequent lack of JS uplift, seeming to bet all on DartVM in the long run. That long-odds bet did not work out, and it cost years of time during which even more features Dart needs in JS, notably int (bignum) support, could have been done sooner, even possibly in ES6. All bygones now, but the point here is that I mainly avoided criticizing Dart language design (much is good, some a bit boring as the designers concede) in preference to criticizing the technical politics and market power play.
  - michaelwww 11y ago
    It was very unfortunate that the first time that most heard about Dart was through a leaked memo from Google predicting Dart would replace JavaScript [http://pastebin.com/NUMTTrKj http://pastebin.com/NUMTTrKj]. It created an atmosphere of hostility towards Dart that I'm sure the developers didn't deserve. I now understand your objections and I'm sorry I lumped you in with the general hostility. My own doubts about Dart after using it for a commercial app, began after watching this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AqbCQuK0gM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AqbCQuK0gM] where Anders Hejlsberg and Lars Bak discuss Dart and TypeScript. I felt Anders made a better case for TypeScript and Lars was feeling a bit threatened, which confirmed for me that Anders was right. Considering where Dart and TypeScript are today, I made the right choice moving to TypeScript. The other problem that I felt wasn't being addressed was that the Dart2js output and JavaScript interop needed a lot of improvement. Since it became clear that the DartVM was not landing in other browsers, this should have been a top priority and it wasn't. Now it is a priority, but it's not clear to me how many resources Google is giving to it. I'm very glad that the path is much clearer these days and thank you for your efforts to sort these things out.
cpr 11y ago
Great interview. (Happen to agree with BE entirely. ;-) I like the image at the end of a bunch of little bangs instead of one big (failing) bang. Maybe even if they're synchronized nicely you can get the same effect as an internal combustion engine with many little bangs driving a crankshaft.

28 points by ericelliott 11y ago

Yay!

It wasn't that long ago the Brendan Eich was still hostile to Dart [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266599] but now he seems to have softened. "Ideally we’ll get things in JavaScript like big integers/bignums that Dart has that JavaScript doesn’t yet" Historically, Mr. Eich has been critical of Dart, and if you follow that thread above he has nothing good to say about Dart, so this is a change, probably brought on by the everyone concluding that the Dart VM has no future in browsers and therefore is not a threat to Javascript. Dart (dartlang) has a lot of nice features, is easy to work with and can increase productivity greatly in some cases. Dart still has a future if they improve the Javascript output as this project is attempting:[https://github.com/dart-lang/dev_compiler https://github.com/dart-lang/dev_compiler] I'm glad Mr. Eich has opened his mind to some of the good things in Dart.

BrendanEich 11y ago
Please read the comment to which you link. I was not hostile to Dart, rather I did vent a bit in refuting bogus crediting of Dart for things going into JS in ES6/2015 and ES7/2016. My criticisms of Dart on HN over the years have all been about the way it was developed: in secret first, with an aim to replace JS that could not work, with serious dart2js bugs not in DartVM left to lie for years; and the consequent lack of JS uplift, seeming to bet all on DartVM in the long run. That long-odds bet did not work out, and it cost years of time during which even more features Dart needs in JS, notably int (bignum) support, could have been done sooner, even possibly in ES6. All bygones now, but the point here is that I mainly avoided criticizing Dart language design (much is good, some a bit boring as the designers concede) in preference to criticizing the technical politics and market power play.
- michaelwww 11y ago
  It was very unfortunate that the first time that most heard about Dart was through a leaked memo from Google predicting Dart would replace JavaScript [http://pastebin.com/NUMTTrKj http://pastebin.com/NUMTTrKj]. It created an atmosphere of hostility towards Dart that I'm sure the developers didn't deserve. I now understand your objections and I'm sorry I lumped you in with the general hostility. My own doubts about Dart after using it for a commercial app, began after watching this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AqbCQuK0gM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AqbCQuK0gM] where Anders Hejlsberg and Lars Bak discuss Dart and TypeScript. I felt Anders made a better case for TypeScript and Lars was feeling a bit threatened, which confirmed for me that Anders was right. Considering where Dart and TypeScript are today, I made the right choice moving to TypeScript. The other problem that I felt wasn't being addressed was that the Dart2js output and JavaScript interop needed a lot of improvement. Since it became clear that the DartVM was not landing in other browsers, this should have been a top priority and it wasn't. Now it is a priority, but it's not clear to me how many resources Google is giving to it. I'm very glad that the path is much clearer these days and thank you for your efforts to sort these things out.

cpr 11y ago

Great interview. (Happen to agree with BE entirely. ;-) I like the image at the end of a bunch of little bangs instead of one big (failing) bang. Maybe even if they're synchronized nicely you can get the same effect as an internal combustion engine with many little bangs driving a crankshaft.