Find: Google's bid to fix Javascript, Dart, is ready for the real world

Google's bid to fix Javascript, Dart, is ready for the real world

A year ago, Google unveiled a programming language called Dart in an attempt to fix what’s wrong with JavaScript. The hope was to eventually “replace JavaScript as the lingua franca of Web development."

At the time, it was just a technology preview, more useful for people interested in developing Dart itself than for those interested in developing applications with Dart. That’s not to say developers couldn’t build with Dart, but the language needed a complete set of development tools to get a sniff of the mainstream. And that’s exactly what Google delivered today, with what it calls the “first developer-oriented version of the Dart SDK.”

The key improvements and features, according to Google software engineer Lars Bak, are as follows:

Find: Access Google APIs with Dart

Dart is google's js replacement. 

Access Google APIs with Dart

By Sam McCall, Software Engineer

Ever since we launched Dart, the structured web programming language, we've heard developers asking for a way to use Dart to connect to Google's most popular APIs and services. Thanks to Google's 20% time policy, I’m working on an open source library that helps Dart developers connect to Google APIs such as Google+, YouTube, URL Shortener, and many more.

My favorite sample showing you how to build web apps with Dart and Google APIs is roulette. This little app will shorten your URL, or if you're lucky, rickroll you.

This library is currently alpha and under active development. Please report all bugs in the issue tracker and ask questions in the discussion forum. Thanks for the feedback, and have fun!

Sam McCall is an engineer in Google’s Corporate Engineering Team in Munich, and is a part-time Dart tinkerer.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor