If you think what the world needs is another programming language you’ll be delighted to know that Google has a new one just for you. It’s called Dart and it will be announced at the GOTO conference on October 10.

The announcement on the GOTO site reads: “Breaking news: Google to unveil World News at GOTO Aarhus. The whole world will be on alert when Google presents a new programming language ‘Dart’ in the opening keynote speak on conference monday.” The presentation is titled “Dart, a new programming language for structured web programming.”

What Will Dart Be?

Few details are available yet, but the language is being developed by Lars Bak and Gilad Bracha. Bak was lead developer of Google’s V8 engine, which renders JavaScript in Chrome and provides a foundation for Node.js. He also worked on an open source implementation of the influential programming language Smalltalk called Strongtalk. Bracha co-authored the Java Language Specification at Sun, worked on Strongtalk and created a Smalltalk-like language called Newspeak.

One possibility is that Dart will be a Smalltalk-like alternative to JavaScript, or possibly a Smalltalk-like language that would compile to JavaScript much the same way CoffeeScript does. Smalltalk influenced JavaScript and many other languages including Objective-C and Ruby, so this could be appealing for developers, especially those who dislike JavaScript.

Towards the Browser-based Operating System

Google has been developing an API for in-browser sharing of data between Web applications called WebIntents. Mozilla is working on a similar system and is working with Google to make this API compatible with WebIntents.

Google has also been working on bringing C++ into the browser with Native Client, which is included in current Chrome beta version and will eventually be available as a plugin for other browsers.

Dart seems to fall right inline with these projects, making the browser much closer to being an operating system in its own right. And all these projects obviously feed into ChromeOS.

A Thousand Languages Bloom

Google is also developing the programming language Go, which it uses in production and supports on the Google App Engine platform.

Red Hat and Mozilla are also developing new programming languages, Ceylon and Rust respectively. And of course languages like Scala and Clojure are still relatively new. Meanwhile, more established languages like Ruby, Python and Erlang are making their way into the enterprise.

Services Angle

The Dart announcement plays into two important trends with implications for enterprise services. First, the movement of applications into the browser, and the increased capabilities of these browsers, changes the way both enterprise and consumer applications are built, deployed and maintained. Second, the increased diversification of programming languages, databases and other platforms give enterprise developers more precise tools to solve business problems. But it also fractures the development landscape and could create challenges in finding qualified people to work on projects.