Hacker News Reader

Comment by BrendanEich | Hacker News Reader

Go back to the other thread and re-read the argument there (or go back to school and learn how to argue). No one said Dart-to-JS by itself was bad for anything.

The leaked memo spoke of a native Dart VM in Chrome and Chrome-first Dart as primary source web app authoring by Google. The clear intent was to pressure other browsers to adopt the native VM.

Google can act like Microsoft (but with less market share) if it so chooses. Just spare us the open-washing hypocrisy, and don't expect productive multi-vendor standardization. Instead, expect a new browser cold war -- no one wins.

View on HN

You appear to have misunderstood.

On one occasion Mozilla has argued that the speed difference between a) non-JS code running natively and b) the same code rewritten in, or even compiled to, JS is (or soon will be) too small to be important. Now on this occasion Mozilla is arguing that the speed difference between a) native-VM Dart and b) Dart-to-JS is (and will remain) large enough to be important. I pointed out that these two claims are hard to reconcile. About the only way they can both be mostly-true is if the performance gap only happens to be large and important enough on exactly those occasions when that gap happens to bite Mozilla in its platform strategy. Not very likely, unless one assumes that the performance needs of the poor sods who just want to use the web (as publishers or consumers) are never all that important.

So the fact that Mozilla's problems with the relatively poor performance of Dart-to-JS would be solved if native-VM Dart went away has little relevance, because most other people's problems with the speed of JS are not helped by making there be no alternative to JS.

> or go back to school and learn how to argue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKm5xQyD2vE

so let me get this right: you are arguing that a problem with Dart is that other browser makers won't get on board, and you happen to be CTO of one of those browser makers?

That seems a rather circular reason for dismissing it.

No browser vendor will give a free lunch to a competitor, at high opportunity cost, by locking themselves into a brand-new and 2nd scripting engine. No one. Steve Jobs' ghost will haunt anyone who tries.

It doesn't matter how "good" Dart is.

re: brand new: fine, wait until it isn't brand new

re: lock in: I'd think Mozilla isn't really locked in as long as there is a cross-compiler. If you decide the the code bloat isn't worth the speed improvement (for the sites that run dart code), yank the VM and no harm done

re: opportunity cost: well the code from Google can be dropped in, unless you really feel the need to rewrite your own version.

re: "free lunch to a competitor": it sounds like if there is is potential for another "browser war", it's coming from that sort of attitude. In fact, that sounds counter to the whole concept of open source.

re: "It doesn't matter how good Dart is.": well, that's a shame. I'd like to think merit counted for something.

Overall, maybe I don't know your world and the politics etc, but it just sounds like a lot of "not invented here" syndrome to me. And I say this as someone who genuinely admires your work and really likes Javascript (and am especially pleased that Dart looks enough like Javascript to be comfortable to me).

You seem new to software. Every addition costs. The 2nd scripting engine in particular. Mozilla went through this to no avail with CPython several years ago. I paid Mark Hammond to do the integration work. It was a constant source of bugs and overhead, and without CPython distribution on Windows, and sane versioning on Mac and Linux, no one used the non-JS code paths save ActiveState in Komodo.

WebKit is supporting Python bindings but that language is 3rd after Objective-C and Apple pays the big Obj-C costs.

My comment about Dart's merits was purely a businessman's evaluation, not NIH. Before you throw that accusation my way, consider Mozilla using Google WebM code, and lately implementing SPDY.

You expect other competing browsers to give Google a strategic free lunch, and to give up their share of influence in standards bodies? No way, not from us, or from Apple or Microsoft or Opera.

But it turns out Dart does not have obvious merit, such that I am moved to implement it (see SPDY for a counter-example). Dart is jejune, knee-jerk, and conservative in its design, from what I have now seen.

I've played with it today and the joy I admittedly feel was quite similar to what I felt when coding LISP. However, I only coded LISP in academia and would not feel comfortable at all using it in a live environment.

For now, I see DART as a proof of concept kind of thing and it definitely should /not/ gain widespread support any time soon. No matter how much money Google will throw at it.

I have no doubt that there would be a cost associated with hooking in Google's code. And I'll take you at your word that it's not NIH, even though a casual reader might guess that you might be a bit more personally invested in Javascript than you'd be in the various things that, say, WebM seeks to replace.

Regardless, I'll leave your words to speak for themselves without further debating. I'll admit I'm a tad disappointed at the level of defensiveness and name calling (of both your competition and of those you debate with), though.

You had better put up or shut up. I did not call anyone names. Cite my words if you can.

As for defensiveness, that looks like your department.

Well, uh, I guess if you put it that way, I sure better....

Whether you want to debate whether the term "name calling" is accurate or not, I would suggest that the following fall astray of Hacker New's guidelines of "the principle here is not to say anything you wouldn't say face to face". Then again, I don't know.....maybe you are that way in person too.

"Grow up!"

"Such ignorance. Willful? You seem new around here, and you are not using your real name"

"How old are you, to never learn or else to forget this?"

"So your trollish commentary notwithstanding"

"I despair of your reading comprehension"

"Am I promising you a pony? No, but then you are not a three-year old."

"(or go back to school and learn how to argue)"

"Dart is jejune, knee-jerk, "

and of course:

"You had better put up or shut up"

Really? It seems you're quite a prominent figure to need to resort to that sort of schoolyard talk, but do as you wish. I'm not going to be baited anymore.

Thanks for javascript, though.

Name-calling means calling a person a name. If I say "Joe is an idiot", I have called Joe a name.

If, on the other hand, I call someone's behavior or rhetoric out, then that person has room to back up. We all make mistakes -- definitely me included.

Your previous comment accused me of NIH without evidence. I talk back to that kind of crap. I'm not baiting you. Let us take each other at our word.

For what its worth, I felt really awkward reading many of your replies in this thread. You are our spokesperson for JavaScript and the CTO of Mozilla. It would be nice if you could talk to people without making disparaging and downright condescending remarks.

I look up to you to speak for the community and to use judgement and character. Anyways, maybe I'm just being too sensitive, but I figured I'd say something.

I take your comment to heart. Sometimes I bite back too hard.

To all those here to whom I've made "grow up!" and similar remarks, my sincere apologies.

Much appreciated. =)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com