Google Dart native on WebKit? • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#11

Post by ianso » Thu, Dec 08, 2011, 3:04 PM UTC

dchest wrote: post #9

HTML5 specifies "type" attribute for "script" tags http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/... The type attribute gives the language of the script or format of the data. I see no reason why some WebKit developers want to restrict what languages people can add by technical means. If there's a political reason to restrict it, they probably should discuss it within W3C and remove "type" attribute if…

From the perspective of the WebKit team, I think it would be about spending a lot of time and effort to support something that isn't part of their core mission, the standardised web.

It would also saddle them with an extra maintenance & support burden for the foreseeable future, to the strategic benefit of nobody but Google.

I think the original conversation was hampered by a miscommunication - it was never made clear whether it was just about hacking on a custom version of WebKit, or about adding Dart support to WebKit based browsers.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#12

Post by ianso » Thu, Dec 08, 2011, 3:12 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #5

hasmoo wrote: post #2

What happened to Google's motto "Don't be evil?". Obviously they are trying to balkanize the web with non-standard technologies again.

Why would this be evil as long as Dart remains an open standard? Making it run better on their platform would incentivize the adoption of Chrome and Dart. Getting near native performance in the browser would help take web apps to another level. Photoshop in a browser, for example.

Hum, I think the problem is that Dart may be technically open source, but it's not a standard. In addition to that you can publish the source but being truly open involves more than that: see the open governance index for an example:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/08/android-is-the-le...

It involves things like multi-vendor support, open project management & roadmapping, standards bodies where applicable, etc. These are all things Dart doesn't have.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#13

Post by davidu » Thu, Dec 08, 2011, 3:13 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #5

hasmoo wrote: post #2

What happened to Google's motto "Don't be evil?". Obviously they are trying to balkanize the web with non-standard technologies again.

Why would this be evil as long as Dart remains an open standard? Making it run better on their platform would incentivize the adoption of Chrome and Dart. Getting near native performance in the browser would help take web apps to another level. Photoshop in a browser, for example.

You've forgotten your history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

And don't think it's not possible, a number of MSFT folks who employed this strategy are now in leadership roles at GOOG.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#14

Post by dman » Thu, Dec 08, 2011, 3:14 PM UTC

hasmoo wrote: post #2

What happened to Google's motto "Don't be evil?". Obviously they are trying to balkanize the web with non-standard technologies again.

I propose googles new motto - "Quasi open"

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#15

Post by soc88 » Thu, Dec 08, 2011, 3:15 PM UTC

Would have been interesting if Dart wouldn't have been such an atrocious, bad joke of a language.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#16

Post by kenny_r » Thu, Dec 08, 2011, 3:17 PM UTC

Dart may not be a standard yet, but both the Dart language and the Webkit source code are open.

Comparing this to Microsoft and ActiveX is an unfair comparison, imho.

2 things can happen: either Dart falls flat and this has no implications to anyone, or Dart becomes a major success and nothing is stopping IE, FF or Opera to writing their own implementation based on the open specification and code.

I fail to see the problem.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#17

Post by 18pfsmt » Thu, Dec 08, 2011, 3:43 PM UTC

soc88 wrote: post #15

Would have been interesting if Dart wouldn't have been such an atrocious, bad joke of a language.

Without explaining how Dart is,"such an atrocious, bad joke of a language" this comment simply adds nothing to the discussion. I would, however, be interested to read your critique.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#18

Post by dchest » Thu, Dec 08, 2011, 3:46 PM UTC

ianso wrote: post #11

dchest wrote: post #9

HTML5 specifies "type" attribute for "script" tags http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/... The type attribute gives the language of the script or format of the data. I see no reason why some WebKit developers want to restrict what languages people can add by technical means. If there's a political reason to restrict it, they probably should discuss it within W3C and remove "type" attribute if…

From the perspective of the WebKit team, I think it would be about spending a lot of time and effort to support something that isn't part of their core mission, the standardised web. It would also saddle them with an extra maintenance & support burden for the foreseeable future, to the strategic benefit of nobody but Google. I think the original conversation was hampered by a miscommunication - it was never made clea…

Let me quote the relevant paragraph from their goals in full:

  Standards Compliance

  WebKit aims for compliance with relevant web standards,
  and support for new standards In addition to improving
  compliance, we participate in the web standards community 
  to bring new technologies into standards, and to make sure
  new standards are practical to implement in our engine.
  We use regression testing to maintain our standards compliance
  gains.

Clearly, one of their goals is to help bring new technologies into standards, as evidenced by first implementing CSS animations, transitions, and transforms, and other various -webkit- things, and then submitting them to standard bodies. Plus there are some code paths in WebKit that only apply to OS X Dashboard, which are really the maintenance burden, given that some OS X relevant bugs are kept in Apple's closed rdar system (I know this because I helped find a bug in canvas). I see no problem if Google will maintain their code -- at least, we'd be able to see bugs in an open bug-tracker.

Why restrict innovation only to certain areas?