[sadfasdfads]

The way I understand it, Dart is a higher-level abstraction of Javascript. People thought that Java was crap too when it came out and said C/C++ was still king. Look how that went.

Perl has been out fucking forever and still isn't in the browser, so stop whining. Javascript whipped your ass in this arena, Perl.

[sambeau]

"People thought that Java was crap too when it came out and said C/C++ was still king"

I was there in 1995 and I have no recollection of anyone saying that. People were generally excited by its possibilities. The worry was about a) embedding a VM into a browser back when memory was limited and b) java was controlled by one company and wasn't an open standard.

Javascript won the 'browser war' because a) it was already there so it didn't need a plugin b) it was 'good enough' for its time c) it had Java in the title d) it had the sense to become an ECMA standard.

Perl never had any plans to be in the browser it was always a Unix command-line tool.

What is interesting is that Java started as a language for making UIs on iPad-like devices, The first web-server was written in Objective C, Perl gained traction as the way CGI programs were written. Now, Objective-C is used for programming iPads, Java moved from UI to Server and displaced Perl for corporate web apps. Meanwhile Javascript has quietly solidified its role in the browser and may finally make the leap to being a major server tech.

[sadfasdfads]

I was there in 1995, too. People were excited about the possibilities in Java and applets, because that was the only purpose in the beginning as far as most were concerned. Then people started writing UI apps in Java and starting to write other standalone apps and it was deemed "slow" and people made fun of it. People seem to forget that these days, because it wasn't long before it took off and became popular.

"Perl never had any plans to be in the browser it was always a Unix command-line tool."

Perl is not (just) a "Unix command-line tool". It is an interpreted language. It was a preferred language for old school webapps in the mid-to-late 90s, and continued in use a lot through the 2000s. Now for the majority, it has been replaced, except for code that is still running on old servers.

So why are Perl programmers ranting against Dart? Javascript is somewhat of a sore spot, even though the average Perl programmer would not admit to it and may not even realize it. A client-heavy web application that doesn't try to do things quickly saving keystrokes is about as far from Perl as one can get. Dart is "Javascript part 2" to the Perl programmer, and subconsciousnessly eats away at the Perl programmers ego. Even though they can't explain why, they feel as they must destroy it.