Skipping JavaScript and Going Straight to Dart [closed]

Question

I understand that Dart has just been released, and while it's not entirely stable (along with the fact that its native code base is relatively small), I was curious to know if, for new developers coming along, if there would be any point at all in skipping JavaScript and going straight to Dart. I, personally, haven't really done much front-end web development beyond Html5/Css3, and am considering skipping JavaScript/JQuery/Ajax, etc, simply because of the fact that Dart appears to be fresh, new, and more advanced.

Despite that, one reason why it might not be the best idea is this post in particular.

Some of the features of JavaScript: - A large amount of frameworks relatively available. - Ease of use, is a simple yet powerful language. - Ajax/Jquery. - Non-proprietary (to my knowledge, despite the fact that NetScape originally developed it, I have no who actually owns the rights to the language, if at all - please edit this if I am wrong). - Prototyping (some might argue that this is good for scripting only

Some of the features of Dart: - Object-oriented, implementing features found in many of Java/C-variant languages. - Super Interfaces. - Message sending/Method invocation. - The ability to switch between dynamic and static typing. - Pointers (yay!)

So, any thoughts here?

Answer 1

A short answer before this question gets closed as being too far down the discussion and opinion path:

Skipping JavaScript may be fine for your own work as long as you are the one able to decide on the platform, but what will you do if you have to work on an existing project that uses JavaScript extensively? JavaScript is everywhere.

Also, even if you're doing completely new development on a platform you control what if you want to figure out how someexistingwebsite.com does some special effect? You'll probably need to look at that website's JavaScript code...

You said:

Some of the features of Dart: - Object-oriented

JavaScript is object-oriented.

Answer 2

My worry with languages like Dart and say, CoffeeScript is that although they may bring out the nice things of Javascript and let you write applications more quickly and reliably, in the end it's still compiling to Javascript.

I feel you should have at least an intermediate understanding of how Javascript works before diving into those, but I may be in the minority here.

Answer 3

Dart appears to be fresh, new, and more advanced.

Dart is not fresh, it's a re-hashed bag of ideas and well to put bluntly lacks the innovation you expect from Google.

Sure it's new, but that doesn't mean anything. Go was new two years ago, where is it now?

Advanced? What? How does that work. JavaScript is more advanced because of the wide range of systems and tools available for it.

I highly recommend you skip the Dart boat and instead focus on what's important. Like learning JavaScript so you can write interactivity for your websites.

As an aside:

Prototyping (some might argue that this is good for scripting only)

Sorry, prototypical OO is a solid construct and very powerful. Definitely read up on it.

haven't really done much front-end web development beyond Html5

If you don't know javascript, you haven't done HTML5.