[zoechi]

Dart is awesome. Just because currently the community is still small doesn't mean much. Google is working on so much great stuff that Dart becomes more compelling every month. They are lying low since awhile with public announcements, but if you follow the commits there is so much work being done. In a few months it will become hard to ignore Dart.

The combined development (TS+Dart) was slowing Angular development down and contribution was painful because one needed knowledge of both languages. There are notable downsides for the split development but I fully understand the decision. Implementing everything in a way that it can be translated into the other language was a real pain and limited both versions to a common denominator which prevented both versions to benefit from the advantages of their respective language.

[kmiroslav]

> Dart is awesome. Just because currently the community is still small doesn't mean much.

Well, it does mean something. Go is evidence that languages can gain momentum very fast so the fact that Dart still hasn't should be a bit of a concern (and probably partially caused by Typescript's popularity).

[Scorpiion]

Dart does have some momentum as well and it's younger than Go. Go's 1.0 release was at 28 of March 2012, whereas Dart's was November 14, 2013.

- https://blog.golang.org/go-version-1-is-released - http://news.dartlang.org/2013/11/dart-10-stable-sdk-for-stru...

[chm]

I'm working on a project in Dart. It just works, and it feels simple, and the type system means I can think more cleanly about my code. I like it, and this news is great!

[themihai]

A Dart-like language designed with WASM as target will make sense now but I think Dart(as it is now)is already doomed to die. The performance promissed is just not there.

[korm]

Javascript compiled from Dart is as fast as normal Js, in some cases faster. And in the server it outperforms Node according to the Techempower benchmarks. https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/

[themihai]

In some cases is slower. Last time I've checked large apps were freezing on safari. The point is that it's not signifiantly faster than js so I think it's safe to say that it failed its main objective.

[mswift42]

Dart's main objective has never been to be faster than js. Dart's goal was to make a modern, 'sane' language.

[Touche]

Dart was only created to be faster than JavaScript. Here's the leaked memo about why it was created: https://gist.github.com/paulmillr/1208618

tldr; JavaScript has "baggage" and can't be made any faster than it currently is, need a different VM + language with types.

Btw, the Dart creators are compiler engineers, not language designers. It explains a bit about why it has failed to catch on.

[themihai]

I think this[0] summarises the main objective of Dart. Having said that I fail to see how it succeeded. Maybe it helped JavaScript evolve a bit but IOS development experience and performance is still vastly superior to Dart/JavaScript/Web.

[0] `The emergence of compelling alternative platforms like iOS has meant that the web platform must compete on its merits, not just its reach. Javascript as it exists today will likely not be a viable solution long-term. `

[kaendfinger]

Lars Bak made V8, and both Kasper Lund and Lars Bak contributed the HotSpot VM. And if you don't consider Gilad Bracha (Who works on the Dart Language Specification) to be a language designer, you probably don't have a clue what he has done.

[danellis]

> not language designers

They designed a language. Is there some other qualification for being a language designer?

[themihai]

How is that? As far as I can remember performance was always the main reason. The main contributor previously worked on hotspot. It was argued that javascript hit the limits on performance and you need a clean slate, especially due the low power of the mobile devices. "Batteries included" and fixing the javascript syntatic issues was presented as secondary objective. This might have been changed after the VM was dropped from the project. Dart was supposed to be a response to native apps which failed miserably. It's a well design ecosystem for sure but it can't even compete with javascript, let alone native apps.

[mswift42]

This is the original dart language announcement: http://googlecode.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/dart-language-for-s....

[isoos]

The keyword you are looking for is Dartium (Chrome with Dart support compiled), and if you are benchmarking a Dart app in Dartium vs. a JS app in any of the browsers, chances are the Dartium app will be faster. The technical goal was achieved, the political support lacked.

[isoos]

There is nothing in dart that would freeze it on safari, except that large app are slow on safari, regardless of dart. Btw. the linked benchmarks are server-side.

[zoechi]

I think the performance is there, it's just gained from JS VM optimizations instead of an alternative VM in the browser. The advantage is that it gets the benefit on all browsers (even those that would never add a Dart VM) and all other xxxToJS languages get the benefit as well. Dart has enough other advantages so being on par with others on performance doesn't mean Dart has to die.

[themihai]

Maybe won't die but it won't thrive either. I guess it's the new GWT. Not a bad thing but it won't disrupt the web development for sure.

[wstrange]

I have not followed WASM that closely, but I believe they are talking about adding DOM integration and other features to support languages like Dart.

It will probably not happen quickly - but in the meantime, dart2js does an admirable job.