Although it is just three years old, Node.js is gaining traction as an application development platform, letting developers extend JavaScript beyond the browser and into servers. But questions remain about JavaScript's appropriateness on servers and developers' readiness to use it.

Promoting its own alternative language to JavaScript, Google is working to bridge JavaScript to Google Dart, with the release Monday of a mapping application that the company is calling its JavaScript to Dart Synonym app.

Google's Dart language, which attempts to address JavaScript's supposed weaknesses, is getting a mixed reaction from the inventor of JavaScript itself, Brendan Eich.

The open source project Node.js was invented by Joyent software engineer Ryan Dahl three years ago next month. It essentially allows JavaScript to be used outside of a browser. Node leverages Google's V8 JavaScript virtual machine to interpret JavaScript, and it uses an event-driven non-blocking I/O model that cloud services vendor Joyent -- a principal Node advocate -- says makes it ideal for data-intensive and real-time applications running across distributed devices. It is also championed by companies such as Microsoft and Mozilla.

JQ.Mobi, an HTML5-optimized rewriting of the JQuery JavaScript library, is available in a beta version as of this week for Android and Apple iOS software developers, with proponents citing dramatic speed improvements and size reduction.

Google this week began offering an alpha version of Google APIs Client Library for JavaScript, which provides access to HTTP-based APIs on the Web, as well as to many of Google's public APIs.

Let's begin with the good news. Google's Dart is a modern, full-featured tool designed by grabbing the best features of Java, JavaScript, and C.

Google is offering a new incremental garbage collector for its Chrome browser to "dramatically" improve the interactive performance of Web applications, the company said on Monday.

CoffeeScript, billed by its creator as "unfancy JavaScript," is in development as a language that compiles into JavaScript but offers a different sense of style.