I agree and used to agree very enthusiastically, but now I kind of understand the browser makers' position. Like, I don't love having my favorite runtimes locked out, but I also don't think having 15 virtual machines bundled with every browser would be a great outcome either. We've already seen how in-browser VMs turn out when they're not adequately maintained with Flash and Java, and it isn't pretty and it leads to people's money getting stolen. So I can't really blame the browser makers for not wanting to go down that road.
What we have now isn't the very best thing I can imagine, but I think it's an OK compromise. We have a set of runtimes that implement a fairly consistent Turing-complete set of instructions, so we can implement just about anything we want and express it almost any way we want. And in the end, I think that's the most important thing.
What we have now isn't the very best thing I can imagine, but I think it's an OK compromise. We have a set of runtimes that implement a fairly consistent Turing-complete set of instructions, so we can implement just about anything we want and express it almost any way we want. And in the end, I think that's the most important thing.