Google unveils new programming language 'Dart'

Google on Monday introduced "Dart," a new "structured yet flexible" programming language to build web applications. Software engineer Lars Bak said Dart aims to be familiar and natural with programmers and should thus be easy to learn. "Dart code can be executed in two different ways: either on a native virtual machine or on top of a JavaScript engine by using a compiler that translates Dart code to JavaScript. This means you can write a web application in Dart and have it compiled and run on any modern browser," Bak said in a blog post. Google noted Bak is a veteran virtual machinist, whose marks are found on several software systems: Beta, Self, Strongtalk, Sun's HotSpot and CLDC HI, OOVM Smalltalk, and V8. Bak said the Dart virtual machine is presently not integrated into Google's Chrome browser, but Google is planning to explore this option. According to the software engineer, Dart targets a wide range of development scenarios: from a one-person project without much structure to a large-scale project needing formal types in the code to state programmer intent. Dart has optional types, meaning a programmer can start coding without types and add them later as needed. "We believe Dart will be great for writing large web applications," Bak said. Dart comes with a set of basic libraries and tools for checking, compiling, and running Dart code, all of which will evolve further with users' participation. Google has made the language and preliminary tools available as open source on dartlang.org. A new platform A separate article on The Next Web said Dart is a new platform developed with simplicity, efficiency, and scalability in mind. It seeks to combine new language features with familiar language constructs into easy to define code. The Next Web said hints of Dart came out in September when Google registered new domain names that covered "DartLang," "DartLanguage," "Dart-Lang" and "GoogleDart" in .com, .net and .org extensions. — VS, GMA News