

Dart 1.0: A stable SDK for structured web apps - asb
http://blog.chromium.org/2013/11/dart-10-stable-sdk-for-structured-web.html

======
asb
As of last week's AngularDart announcement, it sounded like the size of Dart
to JS compiled code was still rather large. I'm surprised a 1.0 release has
been cut if that is still a problem. I know dart2js can and I'm sure will be
improved later, but people are going to make judgements about Dart the
language based on its current performance.

[https://github.com/jbdeboer/angular-dart-js-
size/blob/master...](https://github.com/jbdeboer/angular-dart-js-
size/blob/master/README.md)

~~~
kevmoo1
I'd argue that the size of Javascript output is great and it continues to
improve: [http://work.j832.com/2013/10/dart-to-javascript-output-
size-...](http://work.j832.com/2013/10/dart-to-javascript-output-size-
what.html)

~~~
asb
Yes, the situation seems much better than I thought. I didn't realise
Angular.dart was unrepresentative.

~~~
jbdeboer
We've been working with the dart2js team to reduce the size and they have been
making incremental improvements. AngularDart is smaller this week than last
:-)

Both 170KB and 70.5KB are still pretty huge for trivial apps, though.

~~~
asb
Great to hear! Looking forward to giving Dart and AngularDart a go.

------
nanoman
It's astonishing that the Dart IDE is Eclipse-based - it seemed to me that
Google learned its lesson after rewriting Android Studio on IntelliJ Idea, but
I've been wrong.

~~~
WoodenChair
You have to remember that Dart Editor was started before Google moved to
IntelliJ for Android (at least publicly). Dart Lang is a relatively small team
compared to the people working on the Android dev stuff, so my guess is that
it probably was a matter of not dividing resources for an unnecessary
transition. In my experience Dart Editor works quite well. Of course that's
just anecdotal... Perhaps a Google engineer can shed more light on this
matter.

------
zoechi
I started working with Dart in April 2013 and find it a very promising
approach for web development especially as I dislike JavaScript.

I like that Dart offers a feature rich open source IDE just from the
beginning, also a lightweight but efficient dependency management, and a lot
of other tools and frameworks (Polymer, Angular, ...). The team developing
Dart has very competent members and the community is very helpful and growing
constantly.

At the beginning I hoped Dart would be more like Go but that would probably be
to much difference to the currently widespread approaches to web development.

So I see Dart as a pragmatic approach to enhance web development and IMHO way
better than existing technologies and at least a great step in the right
direction. Version 1.0 is just the beginning I hope.

------
voidr
Apparently you have to "emulate" functions in Dart:

[https://www.dartlang.org/articles/emulating-
functions/](https://www.dartlang.org/articles/emulating-functions/)

After reading this I got the impression that Dart is yet another attempt to
make the client side web accessible to Java developers who can't be bothered
to learn JavaScript.

I think TypeScript is a much better attempt at making JavaScript statically
analyzable, because it actually addresses concerns of existing web developers
instead of just shoehorning yet another "Java runtime" in the browser.

~~~
kevmoo1
A profoundly disagree. Javascript is a great language, but that does not mean
there is not room to improve. There is a reason tools like CoffeeScript and
TypeScript (and even ASM.js) exist: there is a lot of ceremony building large
applications with correct, readable Javascript.

The Dart community is full of folks who have written huge amounts of
Javascript and consider Dart a welcome advance.

I'm a bit confused how function emulation -- useful, but certainly obscure --
could lead one to simply discard the whole project as tools for lazy Java
devs.

~~~
voidr
> A profoundly disagree. Javascript is a great language, but that does not
> mean there is not room to improve.

Disagree with what exactly? Where did I say that JavaScript is perfect and
can't be improved?

On the contrary I actually said that TypeScript is a good way to improve upon
JavaScript, because it actually takes into account real problems that web
developers are facing and solves them.

> There is a reason tools like CoffeeScript and TypeScript (and even ASM.js)
> exist: there is a lot of ceremony building large applications with correct,
> readable Javascript.

There is a reason why LOLCODE exists too and I highly doubt that ASM.js code
is either correct or readable, also I already mentioned TypeScript.

> The Dart community is full of folks who have written huge amounts of
> Javascript and consider Dart a welcome advance.

And if you look at it the other way around there are probably a lot more
developers who have written a lot more JavaScript and dislike Dart. Arguments
like these have no value.

> I'm a bit confused how function emulation -- useful, but certainly obscure
> -- could lead one to simply discard the whole project as tools for lazy Java
> devs.

Let me elaborate on that a bit: the fact that you have to actually emulate
functions means that the language was designed for people who are used to not
being able to define functions directly and think everything must be a class:
Java developers. This clearly shows that the Dart designers are not even
trying to play nice with JavaScript. It may seem far fetched but considering
Google's GWT and Closure toolkit, you can clearly see a pattern here.

------
WoodenChair
I imagine a major reason for the semi-"surprise" announcement is that the team
wanted to pre-empt buzz around EMCAScript 6 which contains some features also
in Dart. Just a theory... (PS I prefer Dart though.)

~~~
mseepgood
I expect ECMAScript 6 to be finalized in 2024.

------
CmonDev
It's curious that they call it 'SDK' and 'tooltip'. Is it to mask the fact
that you have to learn a new very non-mainstream (at the moment) language? It
would be more understandable had the Dart VM been marketed as universal.

~~~
zoechi
Learning a new language isn't that hard. Dart is very similar to languages
like C# or Java. Dart isn't that groundbreaking different. It's an IMHO new
approach to what many think should have been done a long time ago and just a
few steps further than already existing technologies. Usually it's much harder
to learn how to work with the provided libraries and frameworks. Those who are
used to web development can easily reuse most of their knowledge and just add
a little bit more each day to benefit from the new opportunities as most are
used to anyway.

~~~
WoodenChair
Exactly - this is not a radical new language. This is a language that in my
opinion takes the best of JavaScript and Java, and puts them together. If
you're familiar with either, Dart will take you a few hours to get into.
Developers, even novices, should not be afraid to give it a spin. It will be
VERY familiar.

------
sorincos
Next step, a Dart VM for other browsers! Otherwise, it's just another
transpiler (aka lipstick on a pig)

~~~
kevmoo1
May I disagree? The dart2js _compiler_ does everything you'd expect from a
compiler, including inlining, removing unused code, reusing constant
expressions. There is a reason that the several examples of Javascript from
dart2js perform better than the the native Javascript implementation -
[https://plus.google.com/+KevinMoore314/posts/AZ67yWMgmdq](https://plus.google.com/+KevinMoore314/posts/AZ67yWMgmdq)

------
pjmlp
Until I see enterprise customers doing RFP for Dart, it will be JavaScript for
me.

