Google have started to deliver on their promise of building Dart into Chrome with the announcement that Chromium (developer release of Chrome) now features Dart, their replacement to the web standard JavaScript language.
Where are Google going with Dart? How will it impact on the web?
Google have been working on Dart, a structured web programming language, because they feel JavaScript is dated and does not address todays needs for high end web based applications. Controversially, until now, Dart has been closed to input from other web standards contributors.
Google are playing a difficult game here. Dart might well address failings in JavaScript however it will only succeed if all the browsers support it. The internet community has fought a long and difficult battle to have all browsers support a common set of standards. Finally it is possible to use any one of the major browsers and get a near identical user experience on a website.
In days gone by, when Microsoft was the only real kid on the block, Internet Explorer made up the rules and ignored emerging standards in HTML. Then Firefox dared to challenge this, along with other browsers, and through the years Internet Explorer has finally made efforts to adhere closely to HTML & CSS standards.
So now Google comes along and will completely fragment the market again if others do not adopt Dart (assuming it is useful).
As most of the other browser developers have argued, it would possibly be better to adapt JavaScript and have everyone working on it, rather than Google writing their own solution.
Imagine if we went back to the days when certain websites needed a specific browser. Please, NO!!!
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mcrossley