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Google Dart native on WebKit?

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Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#3

Post by ianso »

From reading that email exchange I think the answer to your question is a definite "no" :-)

Aside from that, Google seems to be arguing that 1) there exist languages that compile to EcmaScript, so 2) single-vendor VMs in browsers is now OK. I'm being harsh here but that is the essence of it and it makes no sense at all.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#5

Post by melling »

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.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#6

Post by cjfont »

As it has already been mentioned several times before, the lengthy process of adopting a new technology as a universal standard (via RFC, W3C, etc.) is a necessary evil which has greater advantages to developers/users than a single company going commando with their own great idea. Does Google think Dart deserves an exception to this? Most likely they are seeking a head start at the risk of others not following (as Brendan Eich has already stated Mozilla won't comply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2982949).

Edit: Added link.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#7

Post by hasmoo »

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.

Open standard? Dart is neither a standard nor designed in an open process.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#8

Post by dmethvin »

> developers don’t need to use toolchains

Sorry I don't get this. If Dart is delivered to the browser in source form, you'll still want script compressors and/or tools like Closure Compiler to eliminate unused code. Even if Dart is delivered to the browser in bytecode format you'll need a toolchain on the backend--and you'll still need symbol tables for client debugging.

If anything, the toolchain and project setup will be more complex for Dart developers if they want to support all browsers. They'll need to create one set of files for Chrome with native Dart and cross-compile to JavaScript for all other browsers. Then they'll need to conditionally include one set of script files or the other.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#9

Post by dchest »

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 they come to conclusion that JavaScript is the only language allowed.

Re: Google Dart native on WebKit?

#10

Post by dmethvin »

nigma wrote: post #4

Flashback from 1996: Internet Explorer 3.0 with support of VBScript and JScript (reverse-engineered JavaScript) released. Notabene it also featured CSS, ActiveX controls and Microsoft Java VM with Java Applets - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_3 .

There was even a PerlScript plugin that you could use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PerlScript

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