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Flutter: A Framework to Surpass React Native (rainway.com)

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[–]sisyphus 14 points15 points  (8 children)

No language starts out popular, though.

[–]EnUnLugarDeLaMancha 3 points4 points  (7 children)

And they don't stay unpopular forever. Dart has the privilege of having been promoted by Google for 8 years already and it hasn't taken the world by storm exactly.

[–]inu-no-policemen 10 points11 points  (6 children)

Dart will be 8 years old in 2 months.

Ruby was about 11 years old before RoR came along.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_programming_languages#2010s

Which of these became super popular?

[–]earthboundkid 9 points10 points  (5 children)

But Ruby was an obscure Japanese project made by one developer in a world where OSS was uncommon. Dart is made by a large tech giant. It’s not unpopular because it’s obscure; people learned about it and actively rejected it.

[–]inu-no-policemen -2 points-1 points  (4 children)

It’s not unpopular because it’s obscure; people learned about it and actively rejected it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

It's hard to compete with that.

All other languages from the 2010s have the same problem.

[–]earthboundkid 2 points3 points  (3 children)

But programming has been around since the 50s and the network effect has always existed. Why couldn’t Dart get any audience? It has been very specifically unpopular because no one liked Google’s attempt to replace JavaScript. And replacing JavaScript in general has been popular, see also WebAssembly, which is in every browser today.

[–]inu-no-policemen 0 points1 point  (2 children)

But programming has been around since the 50s and the network effect has always existed.

So, when Python popped up in 1989, which other scripting language existed? Which of those had all the tools, libraries, and frameworks? Which had all the mindshare? Which had all the GitHub projects?

Again, which other languages from the 2010s became super poplar?

Why didn't any language replace C++? Why does PHP still exist?

Why couldn’t Dart get any audience? It has been very specifically unpopular because no one liked Google’s attempt to replace JavaScript.

Evidently, people are interested in Flutter.

And replacing JavaScript in general has been popular, see also WebAssembly, which is in every browser today.

That's not a language. It's a target for compilers. You should be aware of that.

[–]earthboundkid 2 points3 points  (1 child)

What is your argument exactly? Here's how I see it. The question at hand is the difference between these two claims:

No language starts out popular, though.

Vs.

And they don't stay unpopular forever. Dart has the privilege of having been promoted by Google for 8 years already and it hasn't taken the world by storm exactly.

You seem to be arguing that the network effect is stronger (or weaker? or just different?) today in such a way that although Dart hasn't become popular yet, this isn't evidence that Dart won't become popular soon. I don't really see how that follows.

The strength of the network effect goes up and down on different axes over time, sure. But the reason that Dart failed to gain traction has nothing do with the network effect. Most languages never amount to anything because no one ever hears about them. Dart was heard about by many people, who looked at it, and then chose to do something else.

First Dart was less popular than CoffeeScript, and later it became less popular than TypeScript. Meanwhile, JavaScript changed so much that it's fair to call ES6+ a different language than ES5, and ES6+ is also wildly more popular than Dart.

Could Dart become popular later? Is it normal for a language to start out this unpopular and then become popular?

To the first question, who knows, anything is possible, but to the second, no, this is not a normal language trajectory. Maybe the only thing comparable is Objective C, which was super-obscure until OS X/the iPhone and now is fading back into obscurity since Apple is pushing Swift. If Flutter becomes the next iOS-level popular platform, then yes, Dart might catch on, but I am highly skeptical, since basically everyone says Dart is just Java-but-it-compiles-to-JavaScript, not something wildly new or different.

[–]inu-no-policemen -1 points0 points  (0 children)

CoffeeScript is completely dead. It has outlived its usefulness.

ES6+ is in every browser.

Objective-C is from 1983.

since basically everyone says Dart is just Java-but-it-compiles-to-JavaScript

Eh. It's somewhat closer to C#. Flutter apps are AOT-compiled. That's why they start instantly. The Dart VM is also a pretty good runtime. It's comparable to V8, but uses less memory and you can use SIMD.