The thing I dislike about Dart and some other language like Swift or Ruby is that they only have one application.
With Dart you write Flutter aps. With Swift you write iOS apps. With Ruby you write Rails apps.
Java, C#, Rust, C, C++, Go, Python are usable for more than one thing.
I am not saying Dart and Flutter aren't nice, but for sure I would love to see Dart extending to more than just Flutter and making Dart usable for more would be an initiative I would applaud.
Programming language popularity is hard. The network effects are absolutely massive. 99% of all programming languages are a rounding error away from having zero users. To start to compete with any of the big entrenched languages seems to require either:
1. An extremely easy migration story so the language can leverage ("parasitize"?) the existing ecosystem of another alread popular language. That's C++ for C, Kotlin for Java, TypeScript for JS, etc. This is definitely the easiest path to success.
But it means your language is significantly hampered in its design because of the need to be compatible with the language it's building on. This is why C++ is still failing to be a safe language and is a sprawling mess. It's why Kotlin has type erasure. It's why TypeScript, despite having a fantastically complex type system, is still unsound and can't use types to compile more efficient code.
2. A compelling platform or framework that developers want to be on so bad they'll learn a new language. Rails for Ruby, iOS for Objective-C and Swift. This is the harder path but it means the new language is less shackled to a previous one and can be more innovative.
Dart took the second path. I agree it would be nice if Dart had more pillars shoring up its success than just Flutter and I hope we get there one day. But one successful framework is more than most newer languages have and you have to start somewhere.
I'm obviously biased, but I think Dart is a good general purpose language and would work well for many different domains. But fighting against the network effects is hard and growth takes time.
Well, I hear that there's a foundation for it, so: new leadership, new rules. I can't tell from the outside how much of Flutter/Flock is deeply tied to Dart versus it just happens to be a bespoke language because 20% Time exists
Ruby is exactly as versatile as all those other languages you list. It was made before Rails was, and it can do everything eg Python can. It's not very popular anymore outside Rails but eg lots of people did APIs in Ruby using stuff like Sinatra. I personally did lots of CLI utilities in Ruby. It's really nice for stuff like that.
Yeah not sure why this is downvoted it is true, a lot of the open source tooling for ios is built in ruby and plenty of people build scripts and cli tools in ruby.
I'd like it the other way around and want to see Flutter APIs for other languages (lets say Kotlin). Personally I feel no desire to learn Dart to use it only for Flutter.
With Dart you write Flutter aps. With Swift you write iOS apps. With Ruby you write Rails apps.
Java, C#, Rust, C, C++, Go, Python are usable for more than one thing.
I am not saying Dart and Flutter aren't nice, but for sure I would love to see Dart extending to more than just Flutter and making Dart usable for more would be an initiative I would applaud.