Tracking Dart feature implementation

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: not done

Feature: Revised semantics for ==, introduction of equals operator
Spec: done (0.7)
VM: issue 2506
dart2js: ?
analysis: ?

Feature: Show: combinator for libraries
Spec: done
VM: issue 2508
dart2js: ?
analysis: ?

Feature: Checking of type parameter bounds
Spec: done
VM: issue 2507
dart2js: ?
analysis: done

Feature: Implement F-bounded quantification
Spec: done
VM: issue 439
dart2js: ?
analysis: ?

Feature: Mirror interface (aka reflection)
Spec: In progress, initial version done
VM: ?
dart2js: ?
analysis: ?

A stronger Dart for everyone

We are constantly asking ourselves:
How do we make developers even more productive when writing Dart apps? We believe that a critical part of the answer to this question is to make strong mode – a sound static type system for Dart – the standard for all Dart developers.

Teams that use Dart to build apps like Soundtrap, AdWords, AdSense, and Greentea say they really enjoy using strong mode features, such as early error detection. In fact, teams that have switched completely to strong mode cite not only early error detection but also better code readability and maintainability as major benefits. We hear this both from small teams and – even more so – from large teams with hundreds of developers writing and maintaining millions of lines of Dart code. As Björn Sperber from Soundtrap says,
Strong mode and the smooth integration with IntelliJ is a joy to use and a huge improvement. If you’ve tried out Flutter, you’ve already used strong mode checks from the Dart analyzer.

Given the benefits …

AngularDart 3.0: Easy upgrade, better performance

AngularDart 3.0 is now available. It brings better performance and smaller generated code, while also making you more productive.

Version 3.0 is an evolution: although it has some breaking changes (detailed below), it is a smooth upgrade due to minimal public API adjustments. Most of the progress is under the hood—in code quality, stability, generated code size, performance, and developer experience.

Code quality:
2731 instances of making the framework code more type safe (using sound Dart).The AngularDart framework code size is down by 12%.Many additional style updates to the codebase:Changed to use idiomatic <T> for generic methods.Removed NgZoneImpl, all the code exists in NgZone now.Stability:
Many CSS encapsulation fixes due to update with csslib package.Fixed bugs with IE11.

Performance:
For the Mail sample app, we see 30% faster time-to-interactive (currently 3812 ms on a simulated 3G connection, measured via Lighthouse).Our large app benchmark shows 2x faster render times of…

AngularDart 4

AngularDart v4 is now available. We've been busy since the release angular2 v3.1.0 in May. Not only did we "drop the 2", but we also improved the compiler and tightened up the framework to give you smaller code, we updated the package structure to improve usability, and we added several new features. Check out the updated documentation to get started.
Just angular Upgrading to v4 will require more than updating your version constraint. The package has changed names (back) to angular – dropping the 2. You'll need to update your pubspec.yaml and the corresponding imports in your code. In most instances, find-and-replace should do the trick. Going forward, the package will be called package:angular. We'll just update the version number.
Smaller code The updated compiler in 4.0 allows type-based optimizations that not only improve runtime performance but generate better code because we are able to strongly type templates. A big result of the update is that many ap…

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