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Dart language

dartlang.org

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Re: Dart language

#201

Post by jashkenas »

tcard wrote: post #64
snprbob86 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, I've been slowly eliminating my usage of `class` from all of my CoffeeScript code. I've found that my code is much more reusable, far less prone to `this` bugs, easier to reason about, etc. I used to be a huuuge OOP guy, but now I rarely find a use for classes...

Prototypes are fine for a language like JavaScript. They keep things simple. I'd prefer that CoffeeScript (and Dart, of course) implemented a decent syntax for prototyping, replacing the JS mess, rather than trying to disguise them as leaky and half-featured classes.

    > leaky and half-featured classes.
This is a common willful misconception. CoffeeScript classes are isomorphic to JavaScript prototypes -- the do precisely the same thing. In addition, there is a shorthand syntax for prototyping objects, if that's more your style:

    Dog = -> 
      ...
       
    Dog::bark = -> 
      ...

    Dog::run = ->
      ...
Note that the above will produce the same result as:

    class Dog
      bark: ->
        ...
      run: ->
        ...

Re: Dart language

#202

Post by thristian »

cromwellian wrote: post #172
thristian wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have missed the context of his remarks; perhaps I should have pasted more from the original post. You seem to be talking about "what is necessary for Dart to be a viable Web content language", while (I believe) Brendan is talking about "what are the consequences if Dart becomes a viable Web content language". If the Dart → JS compiler produces "good enough" results, and web authors wind up adopting it en…

Dart is OSS, so I geuss if it really got mass adoption, Firefox and IE could adopt it. Yes, this would lead to a single implementation, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it limits innovation from multiple implementations, on the other hand, incompatibilities between implementations, have been a big source of programmer headache in the first place. Flash was not bad in that respect and is one reason…

There's a difference between open-source software and an open-source project. For example, compare the PostgreSQL and MySQL databases. Both are released under an open licence, but PostgreSQL is developed openly on a mailing-list and anyone can step up and contribute, while MySQL is developed privately by an organisation, with occasional source releases. No single entity has a majority control of PostgreSQL, but Oracle has a pretty firm grasp of MySQL.

Likewise, even though Dart is supplied under an open licence, it remains to be seen whether it's operated more like PostgreSQL or more like MySQL. As I understand it, the V8 project is somewhere between the two, and Android is way up the MySQL end of the spectrum. Based on what Brendan has said, I doubt Mozilla would want such a large part of their platform based on a black box they can't control, and I can't really imagine Microsoft doing it.

I don't think your Unix example is quite fair; the number of Unix systems on the planet is orders of magnitude smaller than the number of web-connected system. Even so, there's still a lot of people working with Darwin in the guise of iOS and OS X, and there's a decent number of computers running non-Unix-based operating systems too.

I'll confess I'm not too familiar with the exact changes planned for ES.next, I just recall Brendan saying that improving JS as a primary language and as a compilation target were major goals in the ECMAScript committee. Maybe it's not there yet, but it can get there faster than it will take to add performant Dart VMs to every browser.

Brendan talks about the specific issue of a standardised bytecode here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1905291 (as part of an entire thread on the topic)

Re: Dart language

#203

Post by dextorious »

From the very first comment: "We are in the year 2011, PL design has progressed so much since 1990 that such an anachronism is unpardonable."

It's meant to be a language for web development. Catering to the HUGE, EXISTING javascript dev crowd and meant to work with javascript (compile to, reuse staff) etc.

Can we please remove our blinders for a little while and stop whining that it's not like Haskell or any other flavor du jour?

Re: Dart language

#204

Post by sipefree »

cromwellian wrote: post #101
clownz0r wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird that a systems language and a web language are different, huh?

One has pointers and no security model and produces binary processor-dependent artifacts, the other has to support untrusted code, mobile code that runs on any device.

Go doesn't really have pointers in the same manner as C, though, does it?

As was as I was aware, you can only have a pointer to an actual object.

Re: Dart language

#206

Post by jules »

munificent wrote: post #51
timclark wrote: post #17

Aaaarghhh! It is full of semicolons. Is it really necessary in the 21st century to create a language that terminates lines with semicolons? I am sure I have seen some other languages in the past that get by just fine without them.

The language isn't done yet. Now is the time to let us know if you want semicolons to go away. I know some of us on the team do too, but public interest will help a lot.

Please make the language a nice target for other languages to compile to. Better yet, make a lower level bytecode language that Dart can compile down to as well as other languages.

For example value types would be excellent. Even better would be explicit regions, but I'm sure that's not going to happen.

Also, please fix this:

The type system is unsound, due to the covariance of generic types. This is a deliberate choice (and undoubtedly controversial). Experience has shown that sound type rules for generics fly in the face of programmer intuition. It is easy for tools to provide a sound type analysis if they choose, which may be useful for tasks like refactoring.

And add proper generics. If sound type rules fly in the face of programmer intuition, that means that the programmer's intuition is wrong. The proper response is to inform the programmer of his mistake at compile time, and not to silently ignore it and add dynamic type checks on every contravariant use of generics including array access! That is worse on both programmer productivity because the programmer expects that his program is type safe when he is using static types and on runtime speed because the dynamic checks slow down all programs needlessly. Dart already has dynamic typing; use that when you want it, not something that looks like static typing but really is dynamic typing.

Another thing that would be awesome is if you provide a compact binary format for code.

Re: Dart language

#208

Post by enneff »

sipefree wrote: post #204
cromwellian wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One has pointers and no security model and produces binary processor-dependent artifacts, the other has to support untrusted code, mobile code that runs on any device.

Go doesn't really have pointers in the same manner as C, though, does it? As was as I was aware, you can only have a pointer to an actual object.

Go allows you to take the address of any value. You just can't do pointer arithmetic like you can in C. That is, you can't address uninitialized memory.

Re: Dart language

#209

Post by [deleted] »

roel_v wrote: post #135
rue wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they're not – nor is tabs-vs-spaces (convention) in the same category as semicolons (syntax). It's ergonomics; less superfluous entities and boilerplate makes it easier to express ideas.

Awesome, your comment is a perfect epitome of the point I was making :) Convention/syntax is completely orthogonal to that point - that point being that experienced programmers don't notice the semicolons, or braces vs 'End If' (OK I realize I'm threading on thin ice with that one...) - once one reaches a certain fluency in programming and reading code, one transcends minute details like that. It's like learning how…

[deleted]

Re: Dart language

#210

Post by thirsteh »

clownz0r wrote: post #84
masklinn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This looks like Java for Javascript, if that makes any kind of sense. It completely does. And I love that it manages to be completely incoherent with Go, the other "Google Language". That's so symptomatic of what google does on that front.

Weird that a systems language and a web language are different, huh?

One of the design goals: "Ensure that Dart delivers high performance on all modern web browsers and environments ranging from small handheld devices to server-side execution."

Server-side execution...

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