Introducing Dart

SETH LADD: Hi, my name is Seth Ladd. I’m a developer advocate with the Dart project. In this video, I will introduce you to the different parts of Dart and explain how Dart can help developers be more productive, building faster apps for the modern web. Dart can be a productive environment for developers new to the web, especially developers familiar and comfortable with structured languages and tools. You can use Dart to scale from small scripts to large apps that take advantage of the wide array of HTML5 features.

00:31 - Dart apps compile to JavaScript and run across modern desktop and mobile browsers. The Dart language is designed to be easy to learn for developers that are familiar with C#, Java, ActionScript, and JavaScript. It is a class-based, object-oriented, dynamic language with closures, lexical scope, and more. As you can see, the code syntax looks familiar and is easy to learn. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find some cool features like optional static type annotations for inline documentation, safer concurrent programming with isolates, libraries for code organization, and more.

01:06 - The language is easy to use with your favorite text editor, or with our lightweight and productive Dart Editor. Dart Editor can help you create a project, explore unfamiliar APIs with code completion, update the code with refactoring and quick fixes, find problems early with inline warnings and errors, and much more. You also have the option of using Eclipse and IntelliJ, as both products support a rich Dart editing experience. Once you’ve written some Dart code, you can run it in two ways. You can run your app across modern desktop and mobile browsers, thanks to our third-generation Dart to JavaScript compiler.

01:43 - For faster app downloads, Dart to JS eliminates dead code from the generated JavaScript. Dart to JS also generates source maps, which tells browsers how to debug the original Dart code, even when it’s first compiled to JavaScript. For even faster performance, quicker startup, and a productive debugging experience, Dart programs can also run natively in the Dart Virtual Machine. This new VM was originally designed by the same team that built V8, Chrome’s fast JavaScript engine. The Dart VM is built for speed. For example, VM snapshots improve application startup by up to 10 times.

02:21 - The VM can power command-line Dart scripts that access sockets, files, processes, and more. You can even build your own web server with the Dart VM. But with the VM embedded into web browsers, developers can quickly test their apps without first compiling to JavaScript. You can debug your apps directly from Dart Editor by launching into Dartium, our custom build of Chromium with a Dart VM. Using Dart Editor with Dartium, you can launch the app, set breakpoints, inspect variables and objects, and step through the code.

02:56 - Developers experience a fast edit/reload cycle, thanks to the editor’s integration with Dartium. Building new apps with the editor and Dartium is fun. But developers often need to integrate with existing libraries and code. Now there’s a way to call existing JavaScript libraries directly from Dart. You can use JavaScript APIs like Google Maps, or your own in-house code, without first porting it to Dart. But perhaps there’s already a port of your favorite library to Dart. To discover, install, and manage third-party Dart libraries, use Pub, our package manager. A simple configuration file declares your application’s dependencies, and with a quick command, those libraries are downloaded and installed for your app. Pub makes it easy to share your code, install libraries from other developers, and keep your dependencies up to date. As you can see, Dart is much more than just a language.

03:48 - To try it out, you can join our open-source project, download Dart Editor, and learn more about Dart at dartlang.org. We look forward to your feedback. .