Angular Announces AngularDart • Hacker News Board

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#31

Post by Bahamut » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:24 PM UTC

btian wrote: post #21

nateabele wrote: post #2

Sigh ... I knew this was going to happen. :-/ This is part of Google's strategy to push Dart in the browser. Soon they're going to start developing Angular primarily in Dart, and 'back-porting' features to JavaScript. Sadly, this is the nature of so-called "Open Source" at Google.

Well Dart can be compiled to JavaScript. What's not open source about Dart or Angular?

It may be open source, but it makes it more difficult to work with existing js libraries, and shoehorns you into a particular environment that is not standard frontend (html, css, js). Sure, Dart may compile down to js, but that adds another layer to a build process, and increases complexity unnecessarily.

As a fairly knowledgeable user of Angular & sometime contributor, this is a disturbing rumor.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#32

Post by pygy_ » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:30 PM UTC

nateabele wrote: post #25

pygy_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just outed your source. Edit: still too many details.

Better now? ;-)

Yup. I improved mine as well.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#33

Post by eco » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:33 PM UTC

Helianthus wrote: post #27

davidstalnaker wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is Dart "so far behind" CoffeeScript?

developer mindshare. Check tag count for questions on SO; 4500 for CoffeeScript, 1500 for Dart. Not to mention the violent revulsion many people (myself included) are expressing in this topic.

That's not a very good metric. CoffeeScript is twice the age of Dart.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#34

Post by YorickPeterse » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

andyl wrote: post #9

I'm using AngularJS. But this Dart news is a dark cloud. I will never use Dart, or anything that locks me into Google's walled garden. I view Dart as a major negative. Hello Ember.

You do realize who made/maintains Angular right?

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#35

Post by Max_Horstmann » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

I like both Angular and Dart, so that's good news.

One thing I noticed though: transpiling a .dart file with just the import statement for AngularDart (import 'package:angular/angular.dart') generates a non-minified 5MB .js file with almost 150 kloc. Every code change will create a new version of it, invalidating previously cached versions. :/

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#36

Post by mjibson » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

I'm excited for this. I have a fair sized angularjs app that is getting unwieldy, and having a compiler that yells at me about type problems sounds great. Even if dart doesn't get supported by non-Chrome browsers, I think it could still provide lots of value to developers: it has the same useful type checking as typescript, with some other needed features. It is possible that the transpilation to JS will cause problems, but overall I think it'll be a better dev experience producing better software.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#37

Post by spankalee » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

Bahamut wrote: post #31

btian wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Dart can be compiled to JavaScript. What's not open source about Dart or Angular?

It may be open source, but it makes it more difficult to work with existing js libraries, and shoehorns you into a particular environment that is not standard frontend (html, css, js). Sure, Dart may compile down to js, but that adds another layer to a build process, and increases complexity unnecessarily. As a fairly knowledgeable user of Angular & sometime contributor, this is a disturbing rumor.

The dart:js library makes it quite easy to work with existing JS libraries. Most of the teams using Dart at Google are also using some Js in their apps.

Dart encourages a very standard frontend: HTML, CSS and JavaScript, so I don't get that point. Dart compiles to JS like Haxe, TypeScript, ClojureScript, CoffeeScript, etc.

I'm not sure what "rumor" you're referring to. AngularDart is a thing and it reached beta today. That's not a rumor. AngularJS 1.2 is due out soon, and AngularJS 2.0 will be heavily influenced by the work done on AngularDart to modularize and use more web standards. That's also not a rumor.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#38

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

edtechdev wrote: post #20

pjmlp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do the other browser vendors gain by supporting Dart?

It doesn't matter - Dart can compile to JavaScript. When it might matter is if there are apps (like games) that run faster in a Dart VM than in javascript. Anyway though, even Chrome doesn't include a Dart VM yet by default, so no big deal yet.

To piles of JavaScript, you mean.

As well as, forcing developers to infer the way Dart compiler generates JavaScript code, in the absence of source maps.

I rather use JavaScript, thank you.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#39

Post by desireco42 » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:41 PM UTC

andyl wrote: post #9

I'm using AngularJS. But this Dart news is a dark cloud. I will never use Dart, or anything that locks me into Google's walled garden. I view Dart as a major negative. Hello Ember.

Seriously, if you like and use AngularJS and based on something tangential like this Dart announcement, you decide to switch to Ember, which honestly is not that similar.

Like someone said, you/we can always decide to fork project, but again... let people who care about Dart try to do it, I think this is legitimate prof of concept. I don't think it will catch up, if there is genuine work outside Google on Angular.

I am grateful for good work done on Angular project and look forward for new features. I will not use Dart that is for sure.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#40

Post by WoodenChair » Tue, Nov 05, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

If you don't like Dart, don't use it. Nobody is taking away your AngularJS. Google has a right to promote whatever language it thinks will give it a competitive advantage. You have a right to be revolted by it.

However, the hyperbole surrounding anything that even remotely, several years down the line, may threaten the monopoly of JavaScript on the client side web is ridiculous. Language competition is good - it ultimately will make for a better JavaScript.

Personally, I think there are a lot of people deeply invested in Javascript who fear anything that even remotely, one day in the super future, may threaten their skill set. That's understandable - it's the same way MS developers scoffed at learning Objective-C when the iOS ecosystem blew up and the Windows monopoly didn't matter as much.

Let's inject some reality - Dart is no threat to JavaScript for the foreseeable future. AngularJS is not going anywhere. Dart can't be forced down your throat, because no consumer browser even supports it natively yet. You don't need to use it, you don't even need to think about it. Let the people that like it be.