It seems to me that Dart is to JavaScript as Vala is to C. Both Dart and Vala compile to their target languages, have syntax similar to their target languages, are additionally influenced by relatives of their target languages (Java for Dart, C# for Vala), and add an object system onto their target languages.
Dart language
311–320 of 504 posts
Re: Dart language
#312A language that has type hints class keyword, and interfaces, I really think Google should have been better off implementing ES.next stuff... This is one of the most pointless projects Google has ever done, it doesn't solve any web developer problems, it's just the 999999th language. They should have just embraced Coffee script.
"This is one of the most pointless projects Google has ever done, it doesn't solve any web developer problems, it's just the 999999th language."
I would say this is a bit too early to take on the 'maximist' attitude, no?
Like munificent said, someone has gota try. At least he put the flag post down somewhere, and I'm sure he's having fun. Where the maximist point of view doesn't help at the moment is that most of the time It is projects like this one where out of the 1000 features, one or two are genuinely super super awesome new.
Eventually in time, after many projects like this, you end up merging all the 'cool' things you've learned you come up with something super awesome. Somewhat like learned progress. Already the project has grouped many minds together, and that has got to be beneficial.
In fact I don't remember the last time anyone has offered up so many voices in such short time to any language actively being developed nor even in the infantile stages such as this one.
Btw, from a philosophical point of view, today's 'web developer problem' might not be tomorrow's 'web developer problem'.
Re: Dart language
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key part is (...) compared to having the Dart VM in the browser. It seems pretty obvious to me that unless Google fucks up the VM implementation, it'll always be much faster than compiling to JS, which doesn't even implement the same concepts - let alone semantics - of Dart. In fact, if VM is not much faster, why would they have it at all? Being faster than handwritten JS is irrelevant, because the VM will be fas…
Browsers already have a wide performance differential. What's the ratio between V8 and IE6? Or between desktop and mobile? As long as the performance isn't pathologically bad, it won't matter. Dart apps will start up quicker and run a percentage faster. Maybe perform much better on mobile. A decent win, but doesn't really change the fragmentation equation much from what it already is. The keyword Brendan used was "de…
I specifically referred to new number types. Dart has bignums (int). See https://twitter.com/#!/maccman/status/123400799756881920 for a clue.
Dart-to-JS can't be faster than hand-coded JS if it does not use bignums. If it does use bignums that do not fit in 32-bit ints, then Dart-to-JS will be slower than a native VM with built-in bignum support.
IE6 is irrelevant. The topic is modern browser with native Dart VM vs. without.
Re: Dart language
#314From whatever little I see, I am already hating it :-) This looks like Java for Javascript, if that makes any kind of sense. We are in the year 2011, PL design has progressed so much since 1990 that such an anachronism is unpardonable. I sincerely wish that companies like Google focus on hiring the right kind of person for designing programming languages. What is frustrating is that there are so many people who can d…
Agree with parent comment. My opinion, so far: Overall: uninspired. Below what I was expecting. Probably good for Google goals (tooling, migrating developers, etc) The language is somewhat interesting, but unfortunately saddened by an incredibly boring syntax. At this point, I am thinking that they would have been better off just going with the Go language for this. Looks like something good to migrate fleets of java…
Can someone explain to me what's the point of having syntax like:
`var foo = new Bar()`?
Why can't a constructor just be a regular method that happens to return a new instance? What's with this new nonsense?
Re: Dart language
#315I don't speak for the team but I believe I can add some perspective. Think of it this way: what is GWT? GWT os compiling Java, a statically typed language, into Javascript. If you've used GWT you'll know that particularly early on there was a lot of friction. What's simple in Javascript with anonymous objects and duck typing doesn't quite gel with Java so you've had to do things like use JSNI for edge cases. Google h…
If Google produced an innovative replacement for JavaScript, the world would listen. Instead, based on what they have released so far and your comments, they have released a language that is primarily designed to enhance their own tool-chain, which the rest of the world doesn't use and isn't interested in. We don't use GWT. Apparently, we won't use Dart either.
Re: Dart language
#316I was honestly hoping for an Open Intermediate Representation of web languages to be part of the announcement. One that both Javascript and Dart could target so developers could ship binaries to the browser. I am disappointed in the language and I am disappointed in the lack of imagination from Google.
Re: Dart language
#317I don't speak for the team but I believe I can add some perspective. Think of it this way: what is GWT? GWT os compiling Java, a statically typed language, into Javascript. If you've used GWT you'll know that particularly early on there was a lot of friction. What's simple in Javascript with anonymous objects and duck typing doesn't quite gel with Java so you've had to do things like use JSNI for edge cases. Google h…
There's already a language that runs on the server, runs in the browser and compiles to Javascript. It's Javascript!
Re: Dart language
#318From whatever little I see, I am already hating it :-) This looks like Java for Javascript, if that makes any kind of sense. We are in the year 2011, PL design has progressed so much since 1990 that such an anachronism is unpardonable. I sincerely wish that companies like Google focus on hiring the right kind of person for designing programming languages. What is frustrating is that there are so many people who can d…
Agree with parent comment. My opinion, so far: Overall: uninspired. Below what I was expecting. Probably good for Google goals (tooling, migrating developers, etc) The language is somewhat interesting, but unfortunately saddened by an incredibly boring syntax. At this point, I am thinking that they would have been better off just going with the Go language for this. Looks like something good to migrate fleets of java…
I agree that the syntax and semantics are uninspiring (you could say the same about Scala).
Where it shines IMHO is in the core library (http://www.dartlang.org/docs/api/index.html). Look there and you will find some interesting classes that deal with concurrency and asynchronous operations (Isolate, ReceivePort, Promise). Also, unlike standard Javascript, there are collection classes for specific use cases (like Queue, Set, LinkedHashMap). This is where it is superior to both Javascript and mainstream static typed languages like Java.
Re: Dart language
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does "boring Java-like syntax" mean? Can anyone show some quick examples of a boring and a not boring syntax?
Circle my_circle = new Circle(); I have to type the word circle 3 times to define a circle. It gets boring. This gets worse if you are trying to do any kind of user input. BufferedReader my_reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in)); Had to type reader 4 times. :(
People can argue with "boring", call it redundant instead and you'll get less harsh feedback.
Re: Dart language
#320Mozilla's Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript, on the Dart memo leaked a few weeks ago: A Dart to JS compiler will never be "decent" compared to having the Dart VM in the browser. Yet I guarantee you that Apple and Microsoft (and Opera and Mozilla, but the first two are enough) will never embed the Dart VM. So "Works best in Chrome" and even "Works only in Chrome" are new norms promulgated intentionally by Google. W…
What Brendan is missing is that the contest is not closed between JavaScript and Dart. The elephant in the room is the huge and growing mobile space where ObjectiveC and Java rule. It's not about "Works only in Chrome", it's about "Works only on iOS/Android".
What you are missing is the bleeding obvious: the topic of that other thread where I commented was Google's leaked memo about Dart as "replacement" for JS -- that memo created "the contest".
Obj-C and Java are not browser-supported. Sure, there's a native apps vs. web apps contest. Native is winning? Not according to Fred Wilson (AVC) and other observers.
Who knows, really. We're speculating, but let's find out by doing. Mozilla is working on both Open Web Apps that run in modern browsers, and Boot To Gecko.