

Discussing a bytecode standard in browsers - amwb
http://www.aminutewithbrendan.com/pages/20101122

======
Joeri
The curious thing about the demand for bytecode in browsers is that there
doesn't seem to be a practical reason to do it. Bytecode doesn't seem to bring
better performance, as flash doesn't outperform javascript. And web developers
don't seem to want to use other languages, given that aside from GWT (almost)
nobody cross-compiles from another language. Javascript-to-javascript
compilation (closure compiler) is more popular than cross-language
compilation.

It's more likely at this point that the server-side world will standardize on
javascript than that the browser will gain a method for supporting other
languages natively.

~~~
lukev
> And web developers don't seem to want to use other languages, given that
> aside from GWT (almost) nobody cross-compiles from another language.

I've met tons who WANT to use other languages. The reason they don't cross-
compile more often is that for the most part cross-compilation sucks - it is
impossible to debug through, for one thing. GWT managed to get around most of
these issues which is why it's so popular, but it was quite a feat, and it
comes at a cost (two seperate runtimes for GWT code which are every so
slightly different).

If programming in any other language for the browser was just as easy as
javascript, I expect you'd see javascript usage plummet.

~~~
stcredzero
_The reason they don't cross-compile more often is that for the most part
cross-compilation sucks - it is impossible to debug through, for one thing._

So, is the issue really the ability to use source debugging? We could still
treat Javascript as an Intermediate Language and add a Source Pointer data
format that would enable source debuggers in the cross-compiled languages.

In fact, we could build such things into Firefox and Chromium ourselves!

~~~
Joeri
My point exactly. The demand for other languages is clearly not big enough for
people to have hacker together an implementation of it on top of what's there
today. It can be done, it's just that very few people are busy doing it.

------
toddh
So it comes down to: 1) nobody will agree on a bytecode, 2) bytecode is less
flexible than source so it would limit what you can do in the future. It would
take versioning and versioning doesn't work.

(2) only seems compelling in light of (1).

