Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Angular Announces AngularDart

news.dartlang.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 177 posts

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#81

Post by milkshakes »

nateabele wrote: post #73
cletus wrote: post #61

I'm really starting to get tired of the cynical and snarky negativity on HN. Whoever thinks this is part of some grand plan to force Dart down our throats clearly has no clue whatsoever about how Google works. Standard disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer and these opinions are my own and don't reflect those of my employer. Google is a really large company with >10,000 engineers. A lot of what we do starts as grassroots…

That's nice that you work somewhere within the vast organization that is Google, but again, this information comes from a source close to the Angular core team about instructions that the core team have received. Unless you're somehow party to this (which you have indicated you're not), I don't see what you can add here.

spankalee responded to you already[1], how much more clear can people be?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6678798

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#82

Post by discreteevent »

polux wrote: post #63
cletus wrote: post #61

I'm really starting to get tired of the cynical and snarky negativity on HN. Whoever thinks this is part of some grand plan to force Dart down our throats clearly has no clue whatsoever about how Google works. Standard disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer and these opinions are my own and don't reflect those of my employer. Google is a really large company with >10,000 engineers. A lot of what we do starts as grassroots…

Google engineer here too. I completely agree with the fast edit/refresh cycle being a huge plus but that's precisely what Dartium (the build of Chromium that includes the Dart VM and ships with the Dart editor) is for.

Yes, developer workflow is one of the key points I think anyone who has looked at the Dart documentation would get. Or, better yet, even try using the language for five minutes.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#83

Post by Helianthus »

spankalee wrote: post #76
Helianthus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might not be a formalized 'grand plan,' but Dart doesn't have the open, cheerful intentions of CoffeeScript. It's being designed as a javascript replacement. Google's overbearing intention is obvious. You're right: Dart is, functionally, another CoffeeScript, but that's despite Google's plan--ok, 'experiment'--not by design. >So, please, can we discuss this on its merits Your criticisms are shared. That's what…

What are "open, cheerful intentions"? Open? Dart has been open-sourced for 2 years now - only having its proof-of-concept done in-house before the announcement. Cheerful? Not sure how one language that compiles to JS is more "cheerful" than an other, but we're really a cheerful bunch in person. I'm sure you could have a beer with us if you'd like :) As to the your and the OP's point about Dart being another CoffeeScr…

... I was talking ecosystem niche and I think that obvious. Both languages have to compile to javascript to run in the browser, and it's going to stay that way.

You might not be involved enough in the politics of programmer mindshare, but plainly: Dart is attempting a takeover.

Takeovers can be smiles and open source, but they're still takeovers, and this one is doomed to fail.

If you don't see that, you're focused on the work in front of you and (again) not on the politics of technology. Which is fine. I'm sure it would be lovely to have a beer with you, and talk languages and compiler design well into the next day's hangover.

But if you're going to get involved with a conversation on politics, you should think about Google's goals with Dart and whether they're reasonable or beneficial.

General sentiment here? They're neither.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#84

Post by detst »

nateabele wrote: post #73
cletus wrote: post #61

I'm really starting to get tired of the cynical and snarky negativity on HN. Whoever thinks this is part of some grand plan to force Dart down our throats clearly has no clue whatsoever about how Google works. Standard disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer and these opinions are my own and don't reflect those of my employer. Google is a really large company with >10,000 engineers. A lot of what we do starts as grassroots…

That's nice that you work somewhere within the vast organization that is Google, but again, this information comes from a source close to the Angular core team about instructions that the core team have received. Unless you're somehow party to this (which you have indicated you're not), I don't see what you can add here.

What exactly are those instructions? You or your friend have a misunderstanding. This dual-implementation will benefit the project as a whole (whether you prefer JS or Dart). That's what this is about, not to make JS a second-class citizen because evil Google wants to shove Dart down your throat.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#85

Post by Helianthus »

WoodenChair wrote: post #80
Helianthus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Did it work? Hint: you're not in a library, you're in a discussion thread.

"Working" in this instance would be convincing others not to complain. I have no way of measuring that outcome. I tried, my effort got some exposure, so perhaps I can h o p e that I convinced at least one person. Clearly, I failed with you though :)

:D

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#86

Post by aroman »

spankalee wrote: post #76
Helianthus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might not be a formalized 'grand plan,' but Dart doesn't have the open, cheerful intentions of CoffeeScript. It's being designed as a javascript replacement. Google's overbearing intention is obvious. You're right: Dart is, functionally, another CoffeeScript, but that's despite Google's plan--ok, 'experiment'--not by design. >So, please, can we discuss this on its merits Your criticisms are shared. That's what…

What are "open, cheerful intentions"? Open? Dart has been open-sourced for 2 years now - only having its proof-of-concept done in-house before the announcement. Cheerful? Not sure how one language that compiles to JS is more "cheerful" than an other, but we're really a cheerful bunch in person. I'm sure you could have a beer with us if you'd like :) As to the your and the OP's point about Dart being another CoffeeScr…

I think his point — and I tend to agree with it, accurate or not — was that there is an inherent distrust that comes with a project "sponsored" by a large black box (in this case, Google). Google doesn't exactly have a great track record of supporting things forever, or even keeping their "open source" systems as open as possible[1].

So, people are naturally suspicious. CoffeeScript doesn't have this vibe, to me at least. It's made by a team of people across companies (although I think it is sponsored partially by The New York Times Company?) and there is a lot of community which lives outside a specific company's ecosystem.

That said, it could just be my own personal bias, having used coffee script extensively and not used Dart much at all.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/google-just-pulled-a-...

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#88

Post by _ak »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #87

Don't know much about Dart. Is there a way for Dart code to call/use Javascript libraries? Like could I use D3 in Dart?

There's a library to call JavaScript code from Dart, both in the VM and when the Dart code is compiled to JS: https://www.dartlang.org/articles/js-dart-interop/

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#89

Post by nailer »

cletus wrote: post #61

I'm really starting to get tired of the cynical and snarky negativity on HN. Whoever thinks this is part of some grand plan to force Dart down our throats clearly has no clue whatsoever about how Google works. Standard disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer and these opinions are my own and don't reflect those of my employer. Google is a really large company with >10,000 engineers. A lot of what we do starts as grassroots…

When dart was released its authors asked for and received, some very specific feedback about syntax which they mentioned they'd be amenable to changing. Nothing has changed.

Much like android dart is controlled by a small group of engineers in Google. Where's the source code to the current HEAD of dart? I'm pretty sure it's not on GitHub. What features are planned for the next release? I'm fairly sure dart-discuss doesn't exist publicly.

Dark doesn't belong to the web developer community. No conspiracy theory needed, dart is built to suit googles purposes, which is fine. The only thing is expecting people to use it and think its a successor to JS, which, for all the flaws of JS, it is not.

Google know what a community developed successor to JS looks like. Optional strong typing in even MS typescript is more popular than dart. Get together with the community or dart will be he next GWT.

Re: Angular Announces AngularDart

#90

Post by jgon »

wamatt wrote: post #23
spuz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I will never use Dart" That's quite a sure statement. Why don't you think Dart will ever be natively adopted by Firefox at some point in the future?

BrendenEich said this of Dart, 2 years ago on HN, and might help explain OP's sentiment: For the record, I'm not worried about JS being replaced by a better language. I am working to do that within Ecma TC39, by evolving JS aggressively. The leaked Google doc's assertion that this is impossible and that a "clean break" is required to make significant improvements is nonsense, a thin rationale for going it alone rathe…

And here we are 2 years later, TC39 is still nowhere in sight, Javascript is still, in the eyes of anyone with an ounce of taste, a terrible language for large scale development and Dart continues to iterate while offering all of it's advancements as it compiles to JS.

I honestly don't even care if Dart doesn't take off, maybe clojurescript or something similar will instead. But my god something needs to happen in this space because the JS standards body has spent almost 2 decades aggresively doing nothing about the many gaping, egregious flaws in Javascript. Its 2013 and we don't have lexical scoping as standard, but hey let's dick around in committee for another year packing in generators, etc, etc, etc.

I would honestly put a lot more weight in Brenden Eich's words if the state of Javascript and web dev wasn't so absolutely dismal and if he wasn't trying to crap on a project actually working to do something about it.

Post reply on HN