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Comment by pjmlp | Hacker News Reader

> Dart compiles to JavaScript

Not all language features can be represented in JavaScript.

Besides, all the languages that compile to JavaScript just add complexity layers to the already complex model of HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

And I bet there is a VbScript to JavaScript somewhere out there.

> Dart is ratified as ECMA 408. VBScript is not open source, Dart is.

Standards by themselves don't foster adoption.

Eiffel, Ada, Modula-2, Extended Pascal, Common Lisp, Smalltalk, ... have ISO/ANSI standards.

In the 60 - 90's being open source wasn't a requirement for multiple implementations for programming languages.

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Context: I'm using Dart for app development for two years now.

> Not all language features can be represented in JavaScript.

I could not name one (except the dart:io stuff, which is not supported in the JS world). Could you please elaborate?

> Besides, all the languages that compile to JavaScript just add complexity layers to the already complex model of HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

I've found the same, but Dart is a surprising exception. If you are not using any fancy framework (e.g. Angular.Dart), you will be just fine with the close-to-the-browser approach of the language and APIs.

The main example is that Dart's basic numeric types can't be represented in JavaScript. Dart VM integers are bignums, while dart2js numbers are IEEE754 doubles.

That's for performance because I guess the majority of users would probably not notice the difference.

They can be represented in JS, but not natively.

Yes, the decision to make numeric types incompatible between the VM and dart2js was due to speed concerns.

>Besides, all the languages that compile to JavaScript just add complexity layers to the already complex model of HTML/CSS/JavaS

Does it? Because HTML/CSS/JS development is a bit of mess to begin with (and complexity rises when you start adding micro-frameworks into the mix - and you kinda have to if your codebase gets to be a decent size). I've done some Dart web-development, and it's cleaner and nicer.

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