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Google Ports Box2D Demo To Dart
mikejuk writes with an excerpt from an article at i-programmer about a neat graphics demo written in Dart: "One of the difficulties in getting a new computer language accepted by a wider audience is that there is doubt that it is real. Is it a toy language that just proves a concept or can it do real work? In the case of Dart, which is Google's replacement for JavaScript, the development is speeding ahead at a rate that is impressive but worrying. To prove that Dart is already a language that can be used, we now have a port of the well known 2D physics engine Box2D, the one Angry Birds uses, to Dart."
Box2D has previously been ported to Javascript. Source is available at Google Code (under the Apache license). Note that you'll need Chromium to run the demos.
So how does a company create something better than the standards? Or are you perhaps implying that standards once set are the best for ever and ever? It's not as if Google is DROPPING support for Javascript. That would be...outrageously stupid. What exactly is your problem here?
They're mimicking the old Microsoft here - make your own "standards" and break the web by making features and sites that only work Google's browser.
From Dart's wikipedia page:
Google will offer a cross compiler that compiles Dart to ECMAScript 3 on the fly, for compatibility with non-Dart browsers.
And, in fact, dartc already cross compiles Dart code to plain Javascript. Once it's integrated into browsers, use it or don't use it.
It's like Microsoft all again.
Right, that's a stretch. You conveniently cherry pick details here. For example, NaCl is released under a BSD license with source code readily available. Are you saying the same was true of ActiveX since it's launch?
My work here is dung.
The article mentions, box2d-js. The more current port is box2dweb: http://code.google.com/p/box2dweb/
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
You do know how web standards work right? It goes something like this:
1. A bunch of people come up with ideas that would be cool to have in browsers.
2. Some of them add those things to browsers.
3. After we figure out which approach works / is most acceptable to all browser makers, it becomes a standard.
For some reason it's a common belief that it works the other way around (make standard -> implement standard), but anyone know hows anything about programming can tell you why setting everything in stone and then writing the software is a terrible idea.
1. Google isn't claiming that this is the new standard. If they did, they would just drop support for Javascript
2. Insisting on a consensus before every new technological upgrade would be frustratingly slow and the whole process can be held back by one individual. That's not how technology improves.
And when you submit your new idea to the standard committee the very first thing they will ask for is demonstration of existing practice. Standards committees do not design new features. They observe existing practices and extensions and adopt them, possibly with some modification. To get something standardized you must first make it, work out the kinks, show why it's helpful, and get people to use it in practice. Only then will a standards committee consider it for the next version.