I think google missed big time on Dart, and something like TypeScript is what they should have done. I really find it hard to come up with bad things to say about Microsoft's move, it's a mental cognitive dissonance, but I have to admit, they are doing something very right.
1) it's just JavaScript - winning some CoffeeScript fans
2) regular JavaScript is valid, (just like SCSS vs SASS)
3) it has day 1 interop with vanila JS (Dart just started, and until it has it, it's just a play-with language)
4) TypeScript support for most popular editors (Dart has mostly Eclipse I think, TypeScript has support for everything but eclipse, but an eclipse plugin is just a matter of time probably)
5) TypeScript has a bit more chance becoming a standard, (future ECMASCript 6?)
Well played Microsoft, didn't see it coming...
VS 2012 is actually nice, still I would probably wait for an Eclipse plugin (I'm sure someone out there is already working on it) but this is for me a big reason not to start learning Dart
I think you answered your own question. Google wanted a fundamentally different language, not just JS with some extra features thrown in. As to what will win out in the end-- I have no idea.
Google seem to like inventing things, they have people who create languages for a living (some of the creators of Java, that some of them are probably behind Dart) and they did some pretty amazing things, Go is a great language, I'm sure Dart will have a fan base, and who knows, it might catch up (in 2004 no one thought Ruby will be that popular, right?) Google went for their vision, Microsoft went for the practical.
1) it's just JavaScript - winning some CoffeeScript fans
2) regular JavaScript is valid, (just like SCSS vs SASS)
3) it has day 1 interop with vanila JS (Dart just started, and until it has it, it's just a play-with language)
4) TypeScript support for most popular editors (Dart has mostly Eclipse I think, TypeScript has support for everything but eclipse, but an eclipse plugin is just a matter of time probably)
5) TypeScript has a bit more chance becoming a standard, (future ECMASCript 6?)
Well played Microsoft, didn't see it coming...
VS 2012 is actually nice, still I would probably wait for an Eclipse plugin (I'm sure someone out there is already working on it) but this is for me a big reason not to start learning Dart