[wahnfrieden]

sgk284 is on the mark with emscripten and to a slightly lesser extent coffeescript. But another project to keep an eye on is Google's Native Client, particularly the paradoxically-named Portable Native Client (PNaCl). If anything becomes the next standard scripting extension to the browser, PNaCl stands a good chance of being it, IMO. Once we have that, the browser really isn't much inferior to any other applications platform.

I'm guessing it will become more of a focus for Google as their Chrome OS matures. If it's a big success for Chrome, perhaps it'll spread elsewhere.