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Wait, so you're saying that Google-- which has been developing an open source browser for 10 years, pushing web app support into Android, and been heavily promoting Polymer, even a new proposal for a better JavaScript (also open)... they're afraid of standards-based web apps?!!

And Apple is afraid of proprietary, closed-source software, I presume?

The IDE that works, is free/FOSS and runs cross-plattform is the best for me. That would be Netbeans for me, since I mostly do PHP. QtCreator looks neat aswell. And after Anjuta, CodeBlocks and whatnot crashing on Ubuntu for me or not being supported for OS X it seems like a good candidate for C/C++.

In fact, I'd go as far and say that not having a good IDE that runs on Mac, Linux and perhaps Windows is actually a dealbreaker for a new programming language for me.

Example:
Yesterday I came across Dart again and clicked through a few websites on it. I still have it in the back of my head and haven't dismissed it yet because - Tadaa! - Google offers a chrome based IDE for it. ... Couldn't say though that I'm all ready for this cross-compiled for JavaScript fad that's going on right now, so I'm not gonna hold my breath.

That's my take on IDEs.

This is what turned me off on Dart as well. Carte blanche optional typing is about as useful as no types at all. Either add static typing that is enforced or don't add types at all.

Also turned off by the arbitrary divergence from JS. Why?

If they would've required typing there would've been a hell of a lot more people complaining about it than the few who can't handle a little developer freedom. Sometimes you just want to scaffold out some code. Then something starts messing up, go back and add some types and see how your data moves through your application. Or start entirely with typing, then as you run into some of the pitfalls of typing, remove some of that typing and boom, your code is smooth again. It's really the best of both worlds as it allows for both typing people and non-typing people to work together through typedefs and interfacing. Or you can live wholly in either world! You also have to keep in mind that (a) the code is probably going to be compiled down to JavaScript (for the time being) and (b) that the production dart engine doesn't typecheck at all and that's a part of how they get their performance (there is a checked production option though too). BTW, have you seen this?

That code looks like the bastard child of Dart and Go.

Dart with stageXL

According to them this game was ported in 6 hours.

Today we'd have little trouble designing a better language than JavaScript for what we currently do with it, but our best bet to get something like that working is to build a language that compiles to JavaScript and then hoping browsers start building VMs for that language directly, skipping the JavaScript step.

Done

Thanks for providing some information.

In terms of Dart users, here's a list of some. Hope that answers your questions!

I'm not sure this is making much of a case for uptake, though. I took a quick look through that list, and the only non-Google company I really recognize on there is Adobe.

If you follow the links in the article you'll see a chart with "dart", "dart2js", and "js v8". The native Dart implementation is 25% faster than JS. The dart2js conversion is slightly slower.

Dart team member here. The Dart project, like Chromium, is being run as a fully open source project accepting patches from Googlers and non-Googlers alike. We've also begun the ECMA Standardization process, meaning that like JavaScript we'll have a open standard that anyone can implement to. In terms of Dart users, here's a list of some. Hope that answers your questions!

See https://www.dartlang.org/performance/, in some cases they actually are claiming that the cross-compiled javascript performance outperforms the standardized implementation of an algorithm written originally in Javascript (e.g. the DeltaBlue and Tracer benchmarks)

post on the rust site: http://news.dartlang.org/2014/01/dart-11-features-up-to-25-faster.html

Although in some benchmarks the Dart VM is 25% faster than JavaScript (and much more in other benchmarks). The article quotes are a mess. Just look at the actual benchmark numbers at https://www.dartlang.org/performance/ for a good idea of what's actually being claimed.

I'm browsing the samples with Firefox, how is it anything activex?

https://www.dartlang.org/samples

I can't speak to if DartEditor uses Java (and if it does, maybe it just bundles a stand alone bundled JRE?) but it works on most flavours of Windows, Mac and Linux
https://www.dartlang.org/tools/editor/

I'm sure Google have done the occasional Windows only thing, but in general it's really not their style.

Look here. The Dart devs have been very open about their goals and their choices. They do plan standardisation and only want to develop the language to where they want it (where they think it will be good enough to drive adoption) before handing it off.

That is correct. When writing my piece for the story I wanted to ensure that I conveyed the correct idea that the Dart2JS compiler now generates up to 40% less JavaScript than previous versions of Dart2JS, not that the JavaScript itself that it generates is 40% faster.

As far as speed goes, there is all kinds of data on that facet on the Dart website. That will no less generate large amounts of debate about the figures presented by Google about Dart's performance. Just for the comedy of it, dart2js may generate less JavaScript, but will generate at least 60% more debate about its use.

If I was not clear on the whole point by this part of the story:

The new release brings a much tighter dart2js compiler reducing overall JavaScript output up to 40%

Then it was an honest mistake. I work with computers not the English language. :-)

Here is the article on it: js dart interop

+1 For this & link included.

I was huddled under my desk in fear that I'd get rolled into a massive corporate JS goose chase, but then Dart gave me a ray of hope. I just tried it out for the first time yesterday and it held up to its promises: I was productive within 30 minutes of downloading the SDK, and it didn't relieve me of all my most powerful tools for fighting complexity (like proper OO, and by 'proper' I mean non-prototypical).

It's still pretty bleeding edge, and there's some ground left to be covered, such as reflection and JS library integration, but it's a damn sight better than the alternatives I've seen (Ember, Backbone, etc).

Seems like they've worked on it since the last time you checked: http://www.dartlang.org/support/faq.html#hello-world-js-size

well, somehow google thinks javascript IS bytecode :) they compile java to javascript (GWT) and (until it's supported in any browser) their own language http://www.dartlang.org/ (dartc) .. so the missing part is not the browser-bytecode.. simply write your compiler to output javascript instead of bytecode ;)

http://www.dartlang.org/docs/getting-started/editor/index-win.html

The corelib looks very sparse: http://www.dartlang.org/docs/api/index.html

The thing I like about jquery and dojo is that you actually get a reasonable standard library, which JS sorely lacks. It would be nice if dart included a better standard library.

in this case, the article is awful. A simple link to the dart website would have been much better.