[robbrit]

I've had similar experiences, not just with myself but with a number of the other front-end developers I've worked with.

I'd say the major problem is inertia: why switch when Javascript is working "well enough?" Dart does offer some degree of type safety, however it doesn't really have any killer features that make it a huge sell to the existing Javascript community. Contrast this with Coffeescript which provides a complete overhaul of Javascript's syntax to appeal to many web developers, especially those coming from a Python or Ruby background. It leaves the semantics the same with only a few syntactic sugars like classes and the fat arrow. To the fans of Coffeescript, both of these are the killer features that make them want to use it.

[jenscow]

> make it a huge sell to the existing Javascript community

Perhaps Dart isn't aimed at the Javascript community. They're happy with JS.

It's more aimed at those who dislike JS, perhaps coming from traditional OO or static languages.

Dart's killer features to me?

- Tree shaking. You can add a large library, and dart2js will only spit out the code you actually use.

- Classes, type safety, and generic lists.