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Dart 1.0 Released

Posted by timothy on from the what's-the-point? dept.

stoolpigeon writes "Yesterday marked the release of Dart SDK 1.0, a cross-browser, open source toolkit for structured web applications. The Dart SDK 1.0 includes everything you need to write structured web applications: a simple yet powerful programming language, robust tools, and comprehensive core libraries. The language has been somewhat controversial, but Google continues to move it forward." Reader slack_justyb adds some more detail: "The new release brings a much tighter dart2js compiler reducing overall JavaScript output up to 40%; Dartium — a version of Google Chrome that has the DartVM in addition to the JavaScript VM as native to the browser; PUB, a package manager for Dart add-ons; and several favorite 3rd party plug-ins that now come out-of-box, in addition to a lot of work for Dart server-side tools that can work to automate server side tasks and help in the construction of web pages. However Dart has many critics not only from the IE and Apple camps, as one would guess, but from the Firefox and Opera camps as well. In addition to the low adoption of Dart from third parties there are some asking where does Dart go from here? Especially considering that Google is one of the strongest pushers for EcmaScript 6."

4 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. It's a good idea to try it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you've used JS in the past you'll see immediately why DART is so welcome. It's actually SANE!

    My productivity is probably 200% greater in DART then JS. But don't take my word for it, I'm jsut an ana coward!

    1. Re:It's a good idea to try it. by aztracker1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm not sure what you are referring to... for the most part extensions to JS the language have been fairly limited in scope... Some of the ES6 stuff being an exception, that has been a work in progress for some time. Most of the ES5 extensions can be shimmed in, and are often abstracted via utility libraries like lodash. The *language* of JavaScript is *NOT* the Document Object Model (DOM) of the browser... People tend to conflate the two, but it's just not the same thing.

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
  2. Re:Dart2JS is faster than JS?! whatever by slack_justyb · · Score: 4, Informative

    That is correct. When writing my piece for the story I wanted to ensure that I conveyed the correct idea that the Dart2JS compiler now generates up to 40% less JavaScript than previous versions of Dart2JS, not that the JavaScript itself that it generates is 40% faster.

    As far as speed goes, there is all kinds of data on that facet on the Dart website. That will no less generate large amounts of debate about the figures presented by Google about Dart's performance. Just for the comedy of it, dart2js may generate less JavaScript, but will generate at least 60% more debate about its use.

    If I was not clear on the whole point by this part of the story:

    The new release brings a much tighter dart2js compiler reducing overall JavaScript output up to 40%

    Then it was an honest mistake. I work with computers not the English language. :-)

  3. Re:Cross browser? by slim · · Score: 3, Informative

    Any language that cross-compiles to JS is cross-browser. Correct.