> trying to justify why something is still relevant or important in a company roadmap
While I know what you mean, I didn't read the article that way at all. The author isn't a marketing type or someone high up in the company, but a programmer making a calculation about Dart and passing on his observation to his friends, who don't see that situation the way he does. Dart has received a lot of bad press because some Dart engineers made the mistake of saying it would replace JavaScript. I didn't get involved in defending JavaScript from Dart and wrote a bunch of Dart, and I noticed I was about twice as productive. I also learned along the way that Google was heavily invested in something called Google Web Toolkit, a Java based system for writing web apps. I figured Google was looking to replace that with Dart so it would always have a place, and it looks like I was right. The code that powers the engine that brings in 17 billion dollars a year is nothing to dismiss, like many do of Dart, if in fact they are converting GWT to Dart, and it sounds like they are.
TypeScript is one way to add safety, Dart is another. The difference in the two approaches is discussed here by the two main authors Anders Hejlsberg and Lars Bak respectively [1]. What I found compelling about Dart was the elimination of "monkey patching" that Lars talks about. I was also drawn to try TypeScript and found it a great tool as well. So does Google as they are now using TypeScript in Angular 2.0. Microsoft and Google are working together - never thought I'd see the day.
While I know what you mean, I didn't read the article that way at all. The author isn't a marketing type or someone high up in the company, but a programmer making a calculation about Dart and passing on his observation to his friends, who don't see that situation the way he does. Dart has received a lot of bad press because some Dart engineers made the mistake of saying it would replace JavaScript. I didn't get involved in defending JavaScript from Dart and wrote a bunch of Dart, and I noticed I was about twice as productive. I also learned along the way that Google was heavily invested in something called Google Web Toolkit, a Java based system for writing web apps. I figured Google was looking to replace that with Dart so it would always have a place, and it looks like I was right. The code that powers the engine that brings in 17 billion dollars a year is nothing to dismiss, like many do of Dart, if in fact they are converting GWT to Dart, and it sounds like they are.
TypeScript is one way to add safety, Dart is another. The difference in the two approaches is discussed here by the two main authors Anders Hejlsberg and Lars Bak respectively [1]. What I found compelling about Dart was the elimination of "monkey patching" that Lars talks about. I was also drawn to try TypeScript and found it a great tool as well. So does Google as they are now using TypeScript in Angular 2.0. Microsoft and Google are working together - never thought I'd see the day.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AqbCQuK0gM