Dart News & Updates

Posted by Vijay Menon We strive to improve the web development experience, and we’ve been working hard on a better DOM interface for browser programming. The Dart team has been developing the dart:html library and improving its performance for the past several months, and we believe that it provides a much better experience for Dart programmers than the old dart:dom library. For example, dart:html handles cross-browser compatibility for various cases (with more compat work coming), provides a more jQuery like experience for querying the DOM, and makes interaction with the DOM feel natural to Dart developers. We are now ready to deprecate dart:dom in favor of dart:html (tracked via Bug 2517 ).  This means that we will remove the dart:dom library from user facing code no sooner than Monday, May 7th. Please migrate your code to dart:html before this date, and report any problems at http://dartbug.com. Sometime soon after this date, you will not be able to access dart:dom. The dart...

Posted by Seth Ladd We have just published a new article on writing JSON based web services with Dart . You'll learn how to use the trusty XMLHttpRequest and combine it with Dart's type checking and code completion. Didn't think it was possible? Read on , my friendly Dartisan! This article was written by Chris Buckett, an early adopter and Dart community member. The Dart team wants to encourage you to contribute to dartlang.org by writing articles and blog posts. If you've built show off something fun you built with Dart, or simply want to help others learn Dart, we'll work with you to edit and publish your posts. Enjoy!

Posted by Dan Rubel New Dart Editor build available.  Highlights from build 6943 include better management of console view allow multiple consoles to be visible for multiple running applications rename refactoring improvements and bug fixes cleanup launch configurations of removed/deleted applications analysis support for same prefix for multiple imports JavaScript compiler and Dartium improvements UI and analysis improvements and bug fixes Read the full  change log  or start with the Dart Editor tutorial . Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Posted by Dan Rubel The n ew Dart Editor build available. Highlights from build 6722 include: rename method and field (work in progress) click "Run" button launches last launched application new context menu "Run" for running current selection keyboard shortcuts for debugging step in / over / out new preference "remove trailing whitespace on save" automated UI tests under construction code completion and analysis resiliency improvements Read the full  change log  or start with the Dart Editor tutorial . Thanks for your feedback!

Posted by Kathy Walrath The first version of the Dart language tour is now available. We tried to keep it short, useful, and focused on language features, although we couldn't help but touch on a bit of the dart:core library. The tour should be useful both for learning about the language and as a reference for Dart idioms. Please try it out and let us know whether it helped you, how we can make it better, and what other docs and improvements to dartlang.org  you'd like to see. Thanks!

Posted by Gilad Bracha The Dart language team gathered to discuss some of the open issues with the language. Language Bugs: Will review language bugs and either fix, mark as deferred to future release (meaning no decision but distinctly possible in the future) or close. 30 bugs already processed last week. Cascades : The new dart2js compiler has implemented the spec. We will review to see if spec needs minor adjustments in light of implementation experience. We don’t expect any significant changes. Defaults in interfaces:  We expect to support these. Intended semantics are to give a warning if violated by implementor. However, if no default is given in the interface we will not interpret that as a default of null.  People can override in the default code if they want to, and may have reason to.  In any case we have no way force them to do otherwise. We will pin down draft specification. Generics reification: We discussed whether to back off of that. The decision is...

Posted by Anders Sandholm Another round of updates from the Dart team: In Dartium we now have better memory management in DOM bindings and better support for IndexedDB API and various other APIs. In the Dart Editor full debugging is turned on by default and we have an initial cut of new html + css editors. We have live css editing, i.e., your css edits get pushed up to Dartium live, without you having to refresh or relaunch the browser. Moreover, we landed a few improvements on: 1) debugging field inspection and Dartium stability, 2) parser recovery and code completion and 3) dartdoc hover text. Finally, we have new Callers view. The work on pub is continuing - package: added to vm/frog/dart2js . The Dart Language Tour added classes, libraries, isolates, and interfaces. The Global Dart Hackathon was announced.

Posted by Seth Ladd Dart is moving quickly, here's a list of some features with their status in both the Dart VM and dart2js compiler. When appropriate, I've included a link to the issue so you can track the progress. This is a snapshot in time, valid as of 2012-04-12. Feature: Implicit interface of class Spec: done VM: issue 1971 dart2js: done analysis: done Feature: Lazy initialization of static variables Spec: done (0.8) VM: issue 2472 dart2js: ? analysis: not done Feature: const modifier for static variables Spec: done (0.8) VM: issue 2505 dart2js: ? analysis: ? Feature: Support for abstract classes and methods Spec: done VM: issue 1603 dart2js: done analysis: done Feature: Cascaded method invocations Spec: done (0.8) VM: issue 2501 dart2js: http://codereview.chromium.org/9958009/ analysis: ? Feature: Concatenation of adjacent string literals Spec: done (0.8) VM: done dart2js: ? analysis: done Feature: Call operator Spec: done (0.8) VM: issue 1604 dart2js: ? analysis:...

Posted by Dan Rubel A new Dart Editor build is now available.  Highlights from build 6442 include: full debugging turned on by default initial cut of new html + css editors (work in progress) live css editing  your css edits get pushed up to Dartium live,  without you having to refresh or relaunch the browser new Callers view debugging field inspection and Dartium stability improvements rename local variable (work in progress) parser recovery and code completion improvements dartdoc hover text improvements Read the full change log  or get started with the Dart Editor tutorial . As always, the team appreciates your feedback!

Posted by Seth Ladd You are invited to the worldwide Dart hackathon event . Be part of the next evolution of web programming and make an impact by hacking on Dart and sharing your feedback. Locations include: Silicon Valley Tel Aviv Israel Tokyo, Japan Seoul, Korea Prague, Czech Republic Chandigarh, Goa, and Karnataka, India London, England (coming soon) This hackathon is a fun way to try Dart. Even though Dart is still in technology preview, there's plenty of language, libraries, editor, and compiler to JavaScript for you to test and hack on. Register your team today!

Posted by Dan Rubel Announcing a new Dart Editor build available.  Highlights from build 6167 include: Dartium included in Windows distro of Dart Editor Hover over vars for current value when debugging Exclude files/folders from analysis via new "Don't Analyze" menu Improve editor handling of parens and braces Add the ability to view system sources when debugging Updated samples for IE9 Analysis, debugger, editor, VM, and Dartium fixes and improvements You can read the full change log or start with the Dart Editor tutorial .

Posted by Anton Muhin You can now download Dartium for Windows ! Dartium is our nickname for a Chromium-based browser that includes the Dart VM. Dartium can execute Dart web apps directly, so you don't have to compile your code to JavaScript until you're ready to test on other browsers. Soon to come: We’ll update the instructions at http://www.dartlang.org/dartium/ to help you use command-line flags for Dartium on Windows. The Windows version of Dart Editor will bundle Dartium, just like the Linux and Mac versions already do. Word of caution: Dartium on Windows might be less stable than the Linux and Mac versions. Please report any issues you might find. Finally, we’d like to thank everybody who helped us to verify that Dartium actually works on Windows.

Posted by Seth Ladd In an effort to help capture tips and clarifications of our API docs, we've just turned on an experimental comment system for api.dartlang.org . We invite the community to help build out a great documentation resource for Dart. We will moderate the comments heavily, ensuring only actual clarifications, examples, tips, etc remain. We will moderate and possibly delete comments that do not directly assist other users of the API docs. The API doc comments are not the place for: Bugs (please use dartbug.com ) Support questions (please use StackOverflow ) Discussions (please use misc@dartlang.org ) Spam Notes in languages other than English (because we can't moderate those effectively) Links to other websites The API doc comments are the perfect place for: Snippets showing best practice usage of the API Clarifications of the API Example code using the API Because we may incorporate information from comments into the documentation, any comme...

Posted by Seth Ladd We have just posted the video from Dartisans Ep 4 - Demo and Q&A from the Dart Editor team. In this episode, the Dart Team gives a demo of the latest features of the Dart Editor (including edit and refresh cycle, creating a new project, browsing projects, warnings and errors, and more). Thanks to the Dart Editor team for their time and answers to many questions! What do you want to see in the next episode of Dartisans?