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I've always wished that, instead of a "browser language", browsers exposed a LOW LEVEL bytecode environment (which browsers are then free to interpret, JIT compile or on-the-fly AOT compile at page load time). It should be reasonably low level, in that it should provide an abstraction from the hardware, but still allow for very efficient execution of lower level code. Then high level languages and frameworks could be layered on top. This way, browser languages would be 1) more efficient if they need to be and 2) more diverse.

Its a pity that javascript is so in-grained in client-side web now, as its really a terrible bytecode... Hell, failing the above, I would have liked to see Lua as the default client-side language, rather than Javascript (for reasons I will mention shortly), but of course that will never happen now that Javascript has been the default for fifteen years.

The reasons I would like Lua as the default language, besides the fact that LuaJIT is very fast (certainly for number crunching code, especially if you use the FFI to operate on low level structs (I mean, without calling into C) - the FFI is also one of, if not the, simplest FFI I've seen in any language[1]), it is, at least under my impression, a much more consistent language, while being just as flexible, easy to learn and dynamic. The thing I dislike most about Javascript is that it has lots of little gotchas and inconsistencies. Having said that, though, perhaps Lua does too and I just haven't used it enough yet to get bitten by them. Then again, it didn't take long for this to happen in Javascript, so Lua does at least seem to be a little friendlier.

[1] Actually, I think Factor's FFI is similarly simple, if my memory serves me correctly

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fsm = my_dsl[[ start: foo stop: quux foo -> bar foo -> baz bar -> foo baz -> quux ]]{ foo = function() code for foo here end, bar = function() code for bar here end, baz = function() code for baz here end, quux = function() code for quux here end } fsm.run()

DEFINE(Traits.Position)[[ float x; float y; float z; ]] DEFINE(Traits.Movement)[[ float x; float y; float z; ]] DEFINE(Behaviors.do_movement){ input={Traits.Position, Traits.Movement}, output=Traits.Position, frequency=0.01, -- Update entities position fn = function (pos, mov) local delta = dark.timedelta new_pos = Traits.Position.new() new_pos.x = pos.x + (mov.x * delta) new_pos.y = pos.y + (mov.y * delta) new_pos.z = pos.z + (mov.z * delta) return new_pos end} -- Create a sample entity local entity = Entities.new() entity.add(Traits.Position, {1.0, 0.0, 0.0}) entity.add(Traits.Movement, {0.0, -1.0, 0.0})