What is Dart?

Introduction to Dart?

Dart is a general-purpose programming language developed by Google. It was first released in 2011 and is designed to be fast, efficient, and easy to learn. Dart is an object-oriented language with C-style syntax, which makes it familiar to many developers.

One of the unique features of Dart is that it can be used for both client-side and server-side development. This is made possible by the use of a virtual machine that can run Dart code on different platforms, including the web, mobile, and desktop.

Dart also includes a powerful set of libraries and tools, including a package manager called Pub, which makes it easy to share and reuse code. The language is statically typed, which means that the type of a variable is checked at compile-time, reducing the likelihood of runtime errors.

Dart has gained popularity in recent years due to its use in Google's Flutter framework for building mobile and web applications. Flutter allows developers to build highly performant and visually appealing applications using Dart, and its popularity is growing rapidly in the mobile app development community.

Dart, when used in web applications, it transpiled to JavaScript do it runs on all web browsers. The Dart installation comes with a VM as well to run the .dart files from a command-line interface. The Dart files used in Flutter apps are compiled and packaged into a binary file (.apk or .ipa) and uploaded to app stores.

Before going further, have a quick rundown of all Dart Basics topics:

• Why Learn Dart?
• Dart History
• Why Choose Dart over Any Other Language?
• Features of Dart
• Applications of Dart
• Advantages of Dart
• Disadvantages of Dart

Why Learn Dart?

There are several reasons why someone might want to learn Dart:

1. Flutter: Dart is the primary programming language used in Google's Flutter framework for building mobile, web, and desktop applications. Flutter is rapidly gaining popularity among developers due to its fast development cycle, highly customizable widgets, and cross-platform capabilities. If you're interested in mobile or web development, learning Dart is a must.

2. Server-side development: Dart can also be used for server-side development, making it a versatile language. The Dart VM supports server-side applications, and frameworks such as Aqueduct and Angel allow for the creation of web servers and APIs.

3. Familiar syntax: If you have experience with C-style languages such as Java, C++, or JavaScript, you'll find Dart's syntax to be familiar and easy to learn.

4. Dart has great tooling support: Dart has rich tooling support. Almost every major Text Editor and IDE has great support for the Dart language. You can use heavy IDEs like WebStorm, IntelliJ IDEA, and Android Studio, or use simple editors like VS Code, Sublime text, VIM, Emacs, Atom, etc. So you are free to choose whether Editor you are comfortable with.

5. Productivity: Dart's tools and libraries, such as its package manager Pub, make it easy to write, test, and deploy code. Its static type system also helps catch errors before they happen, improving productivity and reducing debugging time.

6. Job opportunities: As Flutter continues to gain popularity, demand for Dart developers is also increasing. Learning Dart can open up job opportunities in both mobile and web development.

7. Dart is a robust language: Dart as a language, is very robust. Heaving been created by Google, its primary purpose was to leverage C-based Object-Oriented Programming languages like C#, and Java. As it is also a general-purpose programing language, it compiles fast and is concise.

Unlike C# or Java, Dart is not bloated at all. In fact, it's a relatively simple, modern and highly efficient language to work with. It's is a compiled language like C, so it's way faster than Java anyway. Dart is also approximately 2x faster than JavaScript. It's type-safe and compiled with both AOT and JIT compilers (to learn about the benefits of that, keep on reading).

From a language point of view, Dart is pretty robust. It's fast, reliable, efficient and as it's used quite heavily by a tech giant, adoption in the community is soaring high. If you want to see how heavily Dart is being used internally by Google.

Overall, learning Dart is a valuable skill for any developer interested in mobile or web development, and it can also be used for server-side development. Its familiatry, productivity, and job opportunities make it a great language to add to your toolkit.

Dart History

The GOTO conference took place during 10th - 12th October 2011 at Aarhus, Denmark. It was here that the Dart programming language was reveled for the first time. The Dart project has been initiated by Lars Bak, a Danish programmer famous for his work on Virtual machines and contributors to the creating of Google Chrome browsers.

Dart was designed to be familiar to developers with experience in C-style languages such as Java, C++, and JavaScript. It includes features such as classes, interfaces, and a type system, which were not present in JavaScript at the time.

The Dart SDK (Software Development Kit) was released in November 2012, which included the Dart VM (Virtual Machine) and a compiler that could convert Dart code into JavaScript for use in web browsers. The Dart SDK also included a package manager called Pub, which made it easy for developers to share and reuse code.

In 2015, Google announced that it was going to use Dart for server-side development as well, with the release of the Dart 1.9 SDK. This opened up new possibilities for Dart, allowing developers to use it for both client-side and server-side development.

In 2017, Google released Flutter, a mobile app development framework that uses Dart as its primary programming language. Flutter allows developers to build highly performant and visually appealing mobile apps for iOS and Android, as well as web and desktop applications.

Dart continues to be developed and improved, with new features and improvements being added regularly. The language and its associated tools are widely used and supported, with a growing community of developers contributing to its development and growth.

However, it might be on the upswing thanks to the emergence of Flutter, Google's UI framework for building native interfaces in iOS and Android. Now Dart is one of the most in-demand programming languages.

Why Choose Dart over Any Other Language?

Choosing a programming language for a particular project depends on several factors, including the requirements of the project, the development team's experience, and the available tools and frameworks. However, here are some reasons why you might choose Dart over other programming languages:

1. Cross-platform development: Dart's primary use case is for developing cross-platform applications, such as mobile and web apps. With the Flutter framework, developers can create high-quality, native apps for iOS and Android using a single codebase. This reduces development time and cost compared to developing separate apps for each platform.

2. Garbage collection: Garbage collection is another key factor in why Google decided to go with dart for instead of option for any other programming language. The majority of languages so that they can access come shared resources, but that's not the case with Dart.

As dart support garbage collection without involving a single lock, the mobile app its platform offer smooth functioning and run smoothly.

3. Familiar syntax: Dart's syntax is similar to other C-style languages such as Java, C++, and JavaScript, making it easy for developers to learn and use.

4. Productivity: Dart's tools and libraries, such ash its package manager Pub, make it easy to write, test, and deploy code. Its static type system also helps catch before they happen, improving productivity and reducing debugging time.

5. Server-side development: Dart can also be used for server-side development, making it a versatile language. The Dart VM supports server-side applications, and frameworks such as Aqueduct and Angel allow for the creating for the creating of web servers and APIs.

6. Job opportunities: As Flutter continues to gain popularity, demand for Dart developers is also increasing. Learning Dart can open up job opportunities in both mobile and web development.

7. Single Layout Format: Unlike other programming languages, if a mobile app developer is using Dart language to use a separate declarative layout or even any visual interface builder.

This is because the layout of the dart language is very simple and readable which process easy for the app developer. As a unified layout, the developer can easily place and thanks to all advanced tools provided by Dart, the process becomes.

Features of Dart

Dart is a modern, general-purpose programming language that offers several features that make it an attractive choice for many developers. Here are some of the key features of Dart:

1. String type system: Dart is statically type language, which means that variables have a specific data type that is checked at compile-time. This helps catch errors before runtime and makes code easier to read and maintain.

2. Asynchronous programming: Dart supports asynchronous programming through its async/await, which makes it easy to write code that can handle long-running operations such as I/O or network request without blocking the main thread.

3. Garage collection: Dart includes a garbage collector that automatically frees up memory when it is no longer needed, making it easier to manage memory and avoid memory leaks.

4. Optional named parameters: Dart allows developers to specify optional named parameters when defining functions, which makes it easier to write more expressive and readable code.

5. Type interface: Dart is strongly types. But did you notice that Dart uses type interface? We didn't need to specify the type (Person) of the variables me and girlfriend. Instead, Dart inferred the type for us at compile time.

6. Mixins: Dart supports Mixins, which are a way to reuse code between classes without creating an inheritance hierarchy. This allows for greater code reuse and modularity.

7. Isolates: Dart includes isolates, which are lightweight threads that can communicate with each other through message passing. Isolates make it easy to write concurrent and parallel code without worrying about locks or shared state.

8. Just-in-time (JIT) and Ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation: Dart includes both JIT and AOT compilation, allowing developers to choose the best approach for their specific needs. JIT compilation provides fast development cycles and hot reloading, while AOT compilation produced highly opitimized code that runs faster and takes up less memory.

These are just some of the features that make Dart a powerful and flexible language for a wide range of applications, from mobile and web development to server-side programming.

Application of Dart

Dart is a versatile programming language that can be used for a wide range of applications, including:

1. Cross-platform mobile app development: With the Flutter framework, developers can use Dart to create high-equality, native mobile apps for iOS and Android from a single codebase. Flutter's hot reloading feature allows for fast development cycles, making it a popular choice for mobile app development.

2. Web Development: Dart can be used to create server-side web applications using frameworks such as Aqueduct or Angel. Additionally, the Dart SDK includes a compiler that can convert Dart code to JavaScript, making it possible to use Dart for client-side web development as well.

3. Desktop app development: Flutter can also be used to create desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux using the flutter Desktop Embedding project.

4. Game development: Dart can be used to create 2D games using the Flame game engine or 3D games using the StageXL game engine.

5. Server-side programming: Dart's support for isolates and asynchronous programming makes it well-suited for creating high-performance, concurrent server-side applications.

6. Internet of Things (IoT) development: Dart can be used to create IoT applications and services, thanks to its ability to run on embedded devices with limited resources.

Overall, Dart's versatility and flexibility make it a powerful choice for a wide range of development projects, from mobile and web apps to server-side programming and IoT applications.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Dart

Like any programming language, Dart has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Here are some of the main ones:

Advantages	Disadvantages
Easy to learn	Limited ecosystem
Productivity	Steep learning curve
Cross-platform capabilities	Limited browser support
Asynchronous programming	Memory consumption
Optional named parameters	Lack of maturity
Garbage collection
High performance
Availability of documentation

Advantages:

1. Easy to learn: The first advantage is that it is easy to learn. Any JavaScript programmer can quickly relearn how to write code in Dart. To do this, they only need to familiarize themselves with the basic principles of this programming language.

2. Productivity: Dart's clean syntax and tools such as the Dart analyzer ad Pub package manager can increase developer productivity and reduce the time needed for development and debugging.

3. Cross-platform capabilities: With Flutter, Dart allows developers to create high-quality, native mobile apps for both iOS and Android using a single codebase, reducing development time and costs.

4. Asynchronous programming: Dart's support for asynchronous programming with async/await syntax and isolates makes it easy to write scalable and high-performance applications.

5. Optional named parameters: Dart's optional named parameter's make it easy to write expressive and readable code.

6. Garbage collection: Dart's garbage collector automatically frees up memory, making it easier to manage memory and avoid memory leaks.

7. High performance: Programs written in Dart tend to run faster than programs created in JavaScript.

8. Availability of documentation: Since Google is developing the interpreter for Dart, all the features of the language are described in detail. This allows you to quickly get answers to almost any questions that may arise during the training process, or directly while writing code.

Disadvantages:

1. Limited ecosystem: Compared to some other languages like Java or Python, Dart has a relatively small ecosystem with fewer libraries and tools available.

2. Steep learning curve: Although Dart's syntax is similar to other C-style languages, it still has a learning curve for developers who are not familiar with these languages.

3. Limited browser support: Although Dart can be compiled to JavaScript, it is not natively supported by all browsers, which can limit its use for client-side web development.

4. Memory consumption: Because Dart is a garbage-collected language, it can consume more memory than some other languages that use manual memory management.

5. Lack of maturity: Dart is a relatively new language, and while it has gained popularity in recent years, it still lacks the maturity of more established languages.

Overall, Dart's cross-platform capabilities, productivity, and support for asynchronous programming make it an attractive choice for developers. However, its limited ecosystem and steep learning curve may be a drawback for some developers, particularly those who are already familiar with other languages.