Google today launched the first beta version of its Dart SDK and Editor. With this update, Google says, the SDK can now produce significantly smaller and faster JavaScript code and make it easier for Dart developers to deploy their code. The Dart Editor now features an analysis engine that’s 20 percent faster at parsing and analyzing code as you type it, making it a bit less likely that your code won’t run because of a typo.
Dart, which developers can compile to JavaScript or run in a special version of Chrome that features a built-in Dart VM, hasn’t quite caught on with developers yet, but that doesn’t mean that Google isn’t putting quite a few resources behind the project.
The Dart Editor now also features smarter code completion that is, for example, camel case aware, deletes unused optional parameters automatically after template editing is done and includes a number of other enhancements.
The Dart VM, Google says, is now up to 40 percent faster at executing certain benchmarks and even the code that’s compiled to JavaScript is up to 20 percent faster. The Dart team also says that it has greatly improved WebGL performance in Dartium, Google’s special build of Chrome with the built-in Dart VM.
It also looks like Google is working to bring its Polymer web components-based UI framework to Dart, though the team currently lists this as a “work in progress.”
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You can find the full release notes here.
Other browser manufacturers haven’t shown much interest in working with Google to integrate Dart into their own browsers (Mozilla, for example, is betting on Rust, JavaScript and asm.js for performance improvements). Even Google hasn’t integrated Dart into Chrome yet, but as the language matures, it’s probably just a matter of time before the first Chrome builds with the Dart VM arrive.
