Google's at it again with a new programming language, this one called Dart. In 2009, Google launched Go, a language designed for writing server software and handling other chores often handled today by C or C++. Dart, though, is "a new programming language for structured Web programming," according to the schedule for the Goto conference where Googlers plan to describe it next month.
There are two Dart presenters. First is Gilad Bracha, who created the Newspeak programming language that just reached version 3. He also was co-author of the Java Language Specification and worked at SAP Labs, Cadence, and Sun Microsystems.
Second is Lars Bak, who led the team that built the Chrome browser's V8 engine. V8 was built in Aarhus, Denmark, where the Goto conference will take place in October. Bak has a particular specialty in virtual machines, software foundations that act like computers that run higher-level languages.
It's tough to design new programming languages and tougher to get them established. The payoff, though, can take several forms: higher programmer productivity, software that runs more efficiently, hardware features that can be tapped.
The interesting thing about Google is that it has enough programmers on staff creating enough in-house software that the company can single-handedly make a programming language at least somewhat relevant. And because it's got such a vast computing infrastructure, anything that increases the efficiency of power consumption, or improves the flexibility of the computing foundation, can pay off directly in lower electricity bills and higher reliability.
In other words, even the very academic subject of programming languages can be a very practical activity at Google.
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