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Dart is better than Javascript, but primarily because any real language is better than Javascript. However let's jump ahead 2 years: - Browsers will support pluggable scripting languages so the developer will be able to choose Javascript, Dart (native), Ruby, Python or Go as the language they use to code in the browser. Why? Because it's the only way to break the innovation stasis in client-side web coding. As an aside, Microsoft got this right in very early versions of IE when you could script in JS or VBScript for example. - A new Open Source IDE will become defacto. it will embed Chromium and Webkit and will feel more like a traditional IDE that a text editor with IDE features, or a browser with a console window. The Browser was never designed as an IDE, yet it is becoming one, organically, and accidentally. Ironic since there are very capable sophisticated IDEs out there that can accelerate web app coding. Dart gets this right. Coding in browser is not going to cut it. You need a sophisticated tool designed explicitly for this purpose to build bigger, more complex, performant applications. I've prototyped some with Dart and my personal opinion is:
- better than Javascript, but
- it's evolved from JS which I feel is a critical flaw
- native IDE is smart, requisite for future web development
- core libraries and language are changing too rapidly to use in any 'conservative' production application Let's skip the stopgap measures and get a browser that supports Ruby or Go natively, then revisit this whole question. |
Maybe we'll have universal alternatives eventually. But I think 2 years is a very optimistic time line.