Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

Post by BrendanEich » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 1:24 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #220

TheDong wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of mindshare, ecosystem, and real usage, it's a failure (when compared to popular languages). Regardless of how good a language it is, typescript fits in a similar space and is much more popular, has a more vibrant ecosystem, and is easier to migrate to.

One thing that allowed TypeScript to succeed is that it was never proposed as a native browser language and was a transpiled language from the start. Once it came out that Google wanted to make Dart a native browser language where it would likely displace the warty Ecmascript, Eich immediately railed against it and said Mozilla wouldn't support it, limiting what could be done in Dart without resulting in code bloat d…

Yes, I alone on my Skull Island stopped Dart! HAHAHAHA!!!!

Google never sent me kickbacks to provide for foolish and doomed DartVM-in-Firefox work, so I laugh once again from Skull Island at such idiocy.

Post by BrendanEich » Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 3:52 AM UTC

munificent wrote: post #449

davedx wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Dart leads prioritized (1) over (2). The idea was that the VM would be so great users would flock to it giving us (2). This is actually why I, as a developer, decided not to use Dart: because it would give Chrome a competitive advantage and more control over the other browsers. Chrome has enough advantages as it is, and I like having competition in the browser market.

The hope was that other browsers would eventually have Dart VMs too and there would still be fair competition. In many ways, this is similar the path that asm.js/WASM took. First it's polyfilled to JS in all browsers. Then some browsers get faster native support while still polyfilling the others. Then eventually all browsers support it natively. The initial asm.js design was a little different because as a subset of…

Hi Bob - quick comment in this. The comparable to DartVM is not WebAssembly but PNaCl, which was Chrome-only. Wasm was much easier because asm.js proved the concept source-compatibly and in multiple browsers. I spoke to Anders Hejlsberg, Steve Lucco, and others at MS in fall 2013 and they got on board, even using OdinMonkey code licensed under ASL2 by Mozilla to overcome MS objections to the MPL.

Meanwhile Dartium could not land in WebKit pre-Blink, because two GCs impose a cycle collector “super-GC” with inevitable extra cost. See https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2011-December/... (I found this link from my HN post at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12773857).

DartVM like PNaCl was trying for too much in Chrome, exceeding what other browsers could afford to embrace at high direct and opportunity costs in a competitive post-Chrome browser market. A spec would take many years and multiple competing implementations to forge. Code is spec with such big single-company-grown projects.

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]

Re: Things I Regret About Node.js [video]