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Google convinces standards group to take on Dart

Google's Dart language alternative to JavaScript inches forward as it earns the right to face standards-deciding body ECMA.

Seth Rosenblatt Former Senior Writer / News
Senior writer Seth Rosenblatt covered Google and security for CNET News, with occasional forays into tech and pop culture. Formerly a CNET Reviews senior editor for software, he has written about nearly every category of software and app available.
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Kasper Lund speaks at Google I/O 2013
Dart programmer Kasper Lund speaks at Google I/O in May 2013. Stephen Shankland/CNET

Just a month after Google decided that its JavaScript replacement language Dart was ready to be used by developers, standards group ECMA announced Thursday that it had created a committee with the goal of publishing specifications for the language.

The task now is for the committee, TC52, to create standards for Dart that developers can all agree to. Google said in its blog post announcing the Dart evaluation committee that it would collaborate with the "broader Web community" on Dart standards via TC52.

Getting ECMA to take on Dart is nothing to sniff at. ECMA is the standards organization that governs changes to JavaScript, C#, and Eiffel.

While Dart is still supported by only one browser, and other browser vendors such as Mozilla and Microsoft have expressed reluctance to incorporate it, the news is undoubtedly good for Dart fans. Standardization might be the first step for Dart toward a wider acceptance by vendors and developers alike.