[Pherdnut]

Google doesn't set the standard for JavaScript. The ECMA does. Microsoft tried their damnedest to run things their way on the DOM API for over a decade(which, yes, is set by the w3c since it's not the core language) and it seriously tarnished their image with client-side web devs and designers to the point where people actually started doing something they hadn't done since the browser wars which was put up "Sorry, we don't support IE" on their web pages (no, not major corporations, but there was a bit of it going around spurred on by regular anti-IE rants from the Opera guys).

Not long after it came to that we got IE9. The first !@#$ing IE browser in over a decade to finally support the exact same DOM spec Navigator did in 2001.

So no, as long as there are multiple browsers and platforms no one entity controls JS. Google did create V8 which we all like a lot because it kicks ass and any time we want more performance we can bind to C but it's not the only non-browser option for running JavaScript. We've got Rhino and whatever the hell Gnome Shell runs and god knows how many other platforms I don't know about (just learned Gnome Shell scripts via JS yesterday)

So no, Google has no leverage to force any major changes in JS. They have made several attempts to introduce their own cheesy language paradigms that look/act a lot more like Java (because they are Java whores) and yes the down-compiled languages are all the rage (you are a fucking MORON if you use coffee script professionally is all I'm going to say on that), but Google most certainly does not and never will have more than a little bit of influence on JavaScript's design nor incentive to because it has a vested interest in preserving its core features so that we don't "break the web."

The argument that it needs to be smaller is hilarious. It is miniscule compared to Java or C# and runs with a fraction of the syntax. And why did the author link to an article on Dart in reference to this topic? Dart is nothing more than a butthurt segment of Google devs trying to replace JS because their largest endeavors with JS have demonstrated that they're completely incompetent at it. Their spreadsheet app craps out when rows reach the 10 thousands and they have no clue how to architect. They just write procedural JS when they're not trying to mimic Java with it.