Opportunity missed by Python ?

[Alain Ketterlin]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 8:45 PM, candide <candide at free.invalid> wrote:
>> Dart is the very new language created by Google to replace Javascript.
>> So Python was not able to do the job? Or may be they don't know about Python
>> at Google ;) ?
>
> Python, as I found out to my detriment, is practically impossible to
> sandbox effectively. Any language that hopes to gain full traction in
> a browser-based environment MUST be secure against scripts gaining too
> much control over the browser chrome.

A first step in that direction would be to have a specification for a
python virtual machine.

I guess engineers at Google know very well the limitations of Python in
its current state. After all, python's inventor works there. Also,
they've tried the optimization road with unladden-swallow. And failed.

> Also, Dart is looking to support (optional) strict typing, which
> Python doesn't do. That's a fairly major performance enhancement.

I think you're absolutely right. They've already included a "better
DOM". The use of typing will let them provide a very efficient standard
library.

I am willing to bet that Google's next step will be to provide a
plugin/extension/whatever to directly execute Dart programs in the
browsers. And then a JIT compiler inside the VM. And then everybody will
want to move, for performance reason. All the Javascript compatibility
is transitional stuff.

-- Alain.