By what definition are flash and java better than Javascript for the web? They are both dying out rather quickly now and for a good reason.

Java is still going strong for app development ...

We're talking about website front ends. However it's been a while since I've seen a Java desktop app. There are simply better tools to use for GUI development than Java.

means that we might be able to approach (in some cases) native performance using Javascript.

Maybe in simple contrived benchmarks but the problem facing JavaScript (and all languages which abstract data types) is that while you might be able to get ALU close good luck not pissing away your memory bandwidth with even the most trivial of operations which, in an increasingly mobile world, isn't a small problem at all.

On a related note : http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/

Am I wrong or is compiling Dart to JavaScript just a temporary solution? I thought they will try to really establish it once Browsers implement a certain planned abstraction standard that will allow other scripting languages besides JavaScript to run natively.

And what motivation does Microsoft or Mozilla have to run Dart in their browsers?

I just thought I read about that once ... a while ago when I looked into Dart. Guess I remember that wrong.

I thought I read that multi scripting language support was part of a W3C standard which will be implemented by all browsers eventually.

But I guess it might have been some Google marketing text that just sounded that optimistic.

Javascript is an Object oriented scripting language. It has been designed by a hell of a genius. It leaves no interpretation misunderstandings for browser if you leave out DOM. It is a memory collected language and thus the fact that objects members are created dynamicaly does not take much down the performance of it (mem collected languages are pooled). If you write correct memory instancing/droping, it runs smooth as native stuff. It is open to browser compilation greatly, but that is also a benefit. Computer has 64bit floaitng registers? Your operations are all 64 floats then, and so on. In next years, OS will be the browser and program will be the javascript code. Browsers will compete in this, and breathtaking applications will take place.

Javascript is an Object oriented scripting language.

No it's not.

It's multiparadigm, and while it supports object oriented programming, it is not limited to OOP. In fact, functional and imperative programming often work better in JS than traditional OOP, especially since JS is prototype-based (which the most popular languages are not, which means your traditional OOP methods likely suck in JS and you have to learn how to do prototype-based OOP).

I hope in the future JavaScript becomes the "binary machine code" of the internet, similar as the real binary machine code on local machine. Then we use higher level and better language, then the language is compiled to JavaScript. Similar as we compile C++ to binary code.

Seems this is the trend. Microsoft has already had TypeScript.

I hope in the future JavaScript becomes the "binary machine code" of the internet, similar as the real binary machine code on local machine. Then we use higher level and better language, then the language is compiled to JavaScript. Similar as we compile C++ to binary code.

This still doesn't solve some of the biggest issues with JavaScript (particularly, memory).

Javascript is an awesome language.

With a good IDE (Webstorm) and a good debugger (Chrome), you can do great stuff.

It supports tons of paradigms. You don't have to go prototypal to use OOP. Although that is the most memory efficient method in JS.

I use it a lot at work to quickly protoype stuff for mobile. It is much more convenient than writing for native Android, or iOS.

Of course, it does have it's performance problems on mobiles, but usually that's just bad DOM implementations. It usually has nothing to do with JavaScript.

Also, firefox is including http://asmjs.org/ in it's nightlies, s it seems that performance is constantly improving.

Problem with games is that DOM is the only way to do graphics, and that means that all of the heavy graphics on Javascript suck.

However, Java7 (and some JRE6s) come with a built in javascript interpreter, So it's also a great scripting language for anyone using Java.

Problem with games is that DOM is the only way to do graphics, and that means that all of the heavy graphics on Javascript suck.

Well, my experience with WebGL thus far has been pretty positive, and I heard somewhere that the JavaScript port of the Unreal Engine 3 is within a factor of two of native performance. I'm not sure how accurate that is (or what the methodology of the comparison was), but, while being half as fast certainly isn't good, to me the fact that it's even sort of comparable is quite interesting.

I use it a lot at work to quickly protoype stuff for mobile. It is much more convenient than writing for native Android, or iOS.

wouldnt you mind to tell how your environment for doing that is set up?

I was also thinking recently that it could be possibly good for prototyping, but had no experience in any www-related development

Are you firing that just as a webpage in your browser?, how do you load assets there? or maybe there is some way to doing such javascript games in a more standalone way, without using the browser? I would like to experiment maybe, also liked a javascript at first view (more then java/c# it looks more flexible and consistent)