Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
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Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
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Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#2I feel for Brendan Eich, he is a bit of an unsung hero when you consider what he enabled with JavaScript and it is always stressful to learn someone is trying to kill your baby.
Having said that, I really do hope it is killed. Well, not killed, but demoted to "one supported language of many". And the sooner this is started, the better, because it is a long, long process. I don't think JavaScript is bad, but I do strongly feel that the underlying engine for client side web programming should be a full-blown VM that supports many possible source languages (ala modern .net with the CLR, DLR and all), and I'll support that model regardless of who pushes it, so long as they do a good job on the technical side and don't try to use it as a lock-in mechanism. Google seems to be the most posed to do this (I can't imagine Microsoft giving up that much control of .net) and their idea to support JavaScript as an interim target is the only practical way this will ever be solved, so I hope Dart is successful -- assuming it is actually going for this and not just trying to switch one core language out with another, which remains to be seen when they announce more information.
BTW, yes, I know you can already compile many other languages to JavaScript (as Dart itself will do in the first stage), but.. why? Why not just put a proper VM down there that is truly designed to efficiently run byte-code from many different source languages, and have JavaScript be one of those languages?
Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#3I feel for Brendan Eich, he is a bit of an unsung hero when you consider what he enabled with JavaScript and it is always stressful to learn someone is trying to kill your baby. Having said that, I really do hope it is killed. Well, not killed , but demoted to "one supported language of many". And the sooner this is started, the better, because it is a long, long process. I don't think JavaScript is bad , but I do st…
A standard VM/Runtime specification for all the browser would be awesome. We got plenty of them; CLR, DLR, JVM, Parrot, etc. Can you imagine? I can see those mime types already: application/csharp, application/perl, application/ruby, application/IL.
Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#4I feel for Brendan Eich, he is a bit of an unsung hero when you consider what he enabled with JavaScript and it is always stressful to learn someone is trying to kill your baby. Having said that, I really do hope it is killed. Well, not killed , but demoted to "one supported language of many". And the sooner this is started, the better, because it is a long, long process. I don't think JavaScript is bad , but I do st…
Google's PNaCl is trying to promote this. I've talked about this a few weeks ago[1]. But until it gets widely deployed and accepted, it is just yet another standard[2] that will unify everything.
Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#5I feel for Brendan Eich, he is a bit of an unsung hero when you consider what he enabled with JavaScript and it is always stressful to learn someone is trying to kill your baby. Having said that, I really do hope it is killed. Well, not killed , but demoted to "one supported language of many". And the sooner this is started, the better, because it is a long, long process. I don't think JavaScript is bad , but I do st…
The main problem with common VMs for multiple existing languages is that often the semantics of the language are heavily coded into the VM. For example, Parrot's core opcodes mimic Perl's behavior of "Type coercion for everyone, the string "0" is false!" There are a lot of other issues as well, and while they are certainly solvable, the resulting VM would be very heavyweight. If you want to design a VM that runs multiple languages, often you have to design the languages around the VM.
Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#6From what is known, it seems as if Google plans to move all their Javascript app building efforts to Dart. Given that GWT/Closure are already pretty successful in large organizations and internally, that seems like a big bet on Dart's future.
Whether the Dart VM gets adopted by other browsers seems relatively inconsequential provided they have a decent cross-compilation story.
Assume Dart is objectively better except for lacking browser support. Even Brendan Eich seems to admit that Dart will be "better". Then developing using Dart will give you an adult tooling story (through Chrome/Dash VM/Brightly), a server-side front-end language (capable of Google-scale applications), optimized compilation to Javascript (presumably better than GWT), and major corporate backing (in contrast to coffeescript).
This seems to be like the makings for a major win provided that Google commits to adopting it internally.
Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#7I feel for Brendan Eich, he is a bit of an unsung hero when you consider what he enabled with JavaScript and it is always stressful to learn someone is trying to kill your baby. Having said that, I really do hope it is killed. Well, not killed , but demoted to "one supported language of many". And the sooner this is started, the better, because it is a long, long process. I don't think JavaScript is bad , but I do st…
Google's PNaCl is trying to promote this. I've talked about this a few weeks ago[1]. But until it gets widely deployed and accepted, it is just yet another standard[2] that will unify everything. [1] http://bit.ly/phxe16 [2] http://xkcd.com/927/
It's not even another standard - it's an experimental implementation.
Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#8From what is known, it seems as if Google plans to move all their Javascript app building efforts to Dart. Given that GWT/Closure are already pretty successful in large organizations and internally, that seems like a big bet on Dart's future. Whether the Dart VM gets adopted by other browsers seems relatively inconsequential provided they have a decent cross-compilation story. Assume Dart is objectively better except…
Google is clearly priming to do a Microsoft-style embrace-and-extend in a big way. Between Chrome, V8, NaCL, WebGL, Android, they have a wide range of technologies that they could begin steering away from standards.
Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#9From what is known, it seems as if Google plans to move all their Javascript app building efforts to Dart. Given that GWT/Closure are already pretty successful in large organizations and internally, that seems like a big bet on Dart's future. Whether the Dart VM gets adopted by other browsers seems relatively inconsequential provided they have a decent cross-compilation story. Assume Dart is objectively better except…
Google is clearly priming to do a Microsoft-style embrace-and-extend in a big way. Between Chrome, V8, NaCL, WebGL, Android, they have a wide range of technologies that they could begin steering away from standards.
But...why? Google makes money selling ads. It doesn't make money selling you support contracts for software that you've been locked into.
From what I can tell, Android exists so that Google isn't at the whim of Apple. The big G's greatest fear is that iPhones become the defacto smartphone, and Apple has the power to cut them out of their platform (by banning Google's ad networks and by setting the default search engine to Bing). I doubt the Android platform will ever really make money for Google.
Re: Brendan Eich on Ecma TC39, JavaScript.next, and Google Dash
#10From what is known, it seems as if Google plans to move all their Javascript app building efforts to Dart. Given that GWT/Closure are already pretty successful in large organizations and internally, that seems like a big bet on Dart's future. Whether the Dart VM gets adopted by other browsers seems relatively inconsequential provided they have a decent cross-compilation story. Assume Dart is objectively better except…
Not all of Dart/Dash can compile to JS.