I'm sad that it's a Google-only thing and that all the other browser makers are balking. Purely in terms of the merits of the language, it strikes me as leaps and bounds better than JS.<p>I'm also a fan of Mozilla's asm.js. It seems to have so much potential. As a full-time JS dev, I guess I'm easily impressed. I just wish the browser makers could get their heads together and agree on some way forward, instead of incrementally polishing the JS "turd."
Wow.<p>"We have a language that works only/best in our browser, features that work only/best in our browser, a dominant OS which requires automatically includes/installs our browser."<p>I guess it was a good strategy for Microsoft while it lasted (and still pays benefits) so they might as well copy it. It will be funny if the EU requires Android phones / tablets to give you a 'browser choice' when you first turn them on / install them.
Dart could be the glue between Chrome and Android.<p>* Sundar Pichai (Google VP) oversees both Chrome and Android.<p>* Google is experimenting with ART (LLVM-backed AOT runtime) for Android. This could be modified to run Dart directly.<p>* Angular was recently ported to Dart.<p>* Polymer is Google's Web Component polyfill until browsers catch up.<p>* Android layouts and views are essentially a form of components. (Possibly mapped to Web Components???)<p>I could see a singular development vision of Angular + Dart + Web Components where Chrome apps are Android apps and vice versa.
Do we really need another Java-like language? I would think since web development is often an "entry level" for many beginning programmers, we need languages with prettier syntax and easier to grasp, something like Python.
Mozilla's take on Dart really strikes me as an emotional and not technical reaction. They may have a valid point about PNaCl, but Dart presents the opportunity to do a managed transition from JavaScript to something better. Having someone for whom JS is their baby as your CTO is going to make letting go very difficult.
Google is a large company that is pushing various tech from a lot of different angles. You have the V8 team that has done a lot of great work for Javascript speeds. Members of V8 also were part of the EMCAScript committee to help move the language forward. With Google's focus on Dart, some of those V8 members have moved on to Dart.<p>Google has also been doing a lot of work with the Shadow DOM, Polymer, and lots of other fun tech.<p>Dart is an experiment to see if they can create a better scripting language for the web. Who knows if it'll work out, but it's nice to see a company trying something a little out there.<p>I'm sure creating large web apps like GMail or Docs in Dart would be much more pleasurable than doing it in Javascript. For smaller scripts just to do simple form stuff, it probably won't be any better (but hopefully not worse than Javascript today).
<i>Specifically, he pointed to problems with having two separate virtual machines, both trying to clean up computer memory through a process called garbage collection and both trying to control Web page elements through the browser's Document Object Model (DOM) interface. "Two runtimes sharing the DOM adds both bug habitat and a performance tax," Eich said. That's an objection Apple has raised, too.</i><p>Why have two garbage collectors sharing the DOM? Couldn't one construct a bridge that synthesizes Javascript under the covers to access the DOM and also maintains a reference for the separate Dart GC for the Dart object trying to access the DOM? This would mean that the native Javascript GC wouldn't have to be aware of Dart at all, apart from the presence of some special Javascript objects that don't get collected by it. Then, when the Dart side is done, and the Dart objects go away, remove the "special" flag from the JS bridge objects and let them be collected normally. (There are a few more wrinkles than that, of course.) Performance would be slower for non-native Dart VMs, but it should be possible to leave Javascript GC mostly untouched.
As a web developer I have to say: a 2x increase in JS performance is insignificant.<p>If I would profile most web apps, JS execution wouldn't account for much of the processing time, the DOM interactions are order of magnitude slower.<p>Users would barely notice a 2x increase in JS speed.<p>Also the snapshotting could be done with JS too if Google would be really concerned about startup time.<p>I would say that at this given moment in time the performance argument is BS, the real reason is that most of Google are Java developers that probably don't like JavaScript and they want something that looks more like Java, because that's what they are used to.<p>JavaScript has it's issues, however I think that TypeScript the superior approach towards these kinds of problems.
I have always wondered whether an average Javascript programmer could generate ninja like javascript code using Dart ? If so, I would gladly invest the time to learn Dart.
"Works best in Chrome"<p>Microsoft tried this with ActiveX. Deja-vu, all over again. <a href="http://technologizer.com/2010/09/16/the-unwelcome-return-of-best-viewed-with-internet-explorer/" rel="nofollow">http://technologizer.com/2010/09/16/the-unwelcome-return-of-...</a><p>In Google's words: "The goal of the Dash (Dart) effort is ultimately to replace JavaScript as the lingua franca of Web development on the open Web platform"<p>I will never support Google's walled garden. Dart is a pathogen.