That page crashed MobileSafari on iPad and continues to after a reboot. Is it just me?
Surprisingly, it works perfectly on a Symbian^3 device (Nokia C7-00).
I honestly have no idea where the world is headed to these days...
Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
21–30 of 70 posts
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#22No IDE support, no VM in Chrome yet, also no support for calling existing javascript libraries. These three things guarantee no quick adoption. I have no idea what Google is thinking.
Wouldn't "adoption" include the things you listed?
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#23Is the JavaScript that comes out of the Dart compiler/transpiler readable (like the JS CoffeScript generates) or is it mush like GWT?
That depends on how close is Dart to Javascript.
CoffeeScript is pretty close. It just changes the syntax, but the type-system is the same.
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#24The optionally static types in the Dart language seems like a good idea. You get both beautiful, simple code, like in Ruby, and the possibility to speed up execution by adding types later. On the other hand, you still don't have the great community like for instance ruby has. Charles Nutter has created a static typed ruby like language, called Mirah, which looks similar.
Full type inference also lets you write beautiful, simple code -- without even needing to add types later, you get them now. And speeding up execution is just a bonus, the main benefit is catching errors early, and refactoring safely.
You cannot add "full-type inference" on top of a language with a dynamic type system. You also cannot add such type inference to an object-oriented language, like Scala (it may be possible, but very hard and nobody did it).
the main benefit is catching errors early
This enables certain techniques that are very productive, and totally different from what you would do in a language like Haskell, which does have full-type inference.
I also do not think a static language would work as a client-side in-browser language, simply because of the nature of browsers and the web. Such a language needs runtime introspection and even types created at runtime like air. For in-browser stuff I also prefer eval() over static-typing any day of the week.
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#25More discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3092558 (it happens to be the top link also)
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#26While Google may need this for building large applications, this is something that the web could do without.
The web needs a standard Intermediate Language: a machine code. This is what Javascript is becoming and it isn't well designed for it.
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#27No IDE support, no VM in Chrome yet, also no support for calling existing javascript libraries. These three things guarantee no quick adoption. I have no idea what Google is thinking.
There is apparently some support for Eclipse[1], but I have not been able to find more details.
[1] http://dartinside.com/2011/live-from-dart-launch/#liveblog-e...
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#28While Google may need this for building large applications, this is something that the web could do without. The web needs a standard Intermediate Language: a machine code. This is what Javascript is becoming and it isn't well designed for it.
> The web needs a standard Intermediate Language: a machine code.
Definitely.
> This is what Javascript is becoming and it isn't well designed for it.
Maybe... but what does a bytecode layer provide?
I wonder if something useful couldn't be written in JS that provides a thin service layer. I agree it's not ideal, but it's what we've got.
Google already have a few to-javascript compilers, including one for Dart... I expect they're already all over this.
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#29While Google may need this for building large applications, this is something that the web could do without. The web needs a standard Intermediate Language: a machine code. This is what Javascript is becoming and it isn't well designed for it.
> The web needs a standard Intermediate Language: a machine code. Definitely. > This is what Javascript is becoming and it isn't well designed for it. Maybe... but what does a bytecode layer provide? I wonder if something useful couldn't be written in JS that provides a thin service layer. I agree it's not ideal, but it's what we've got. Google already have a few to-javascript compilers, including one for Dart... I e…
The point is not that they are already all over this but rather that an IL is something that all the browser makers could get behind.
If Javascript is good enough as an IL why does Dart bypass it in Chrome?
Re: Google introduces Dart, a new programming language for web applications
#30While Google may need this for building large applications, this is something that the web could do without. The web needs a standard Intermediate Language: a machine code. This is what Javascript is becoming and it isn't well designed for it.
Yes. And since Javascript is so popular, we should base the name of this IL on it- I suggest Java.