Dart Language Evolution with Vince Varga

In this episode, I talked about the evolution of the Dart programming language.

The Dart language improves greatly from release to release. Since 2.0, Dart has a sound type system. Since then, many valuable features were added to the language, for example int-to-double conversion, set literals, as well as operators to improve code that performs list manipulation: the spread operator, collection if and for operators. Extension methods were a great addition to the language and they enable you to add any functionality to any type, even types you don't own, thus making your code very expressive. 

Since Dart 2.12, the language supports sound null safety. When you opt into null safety, types in your code are non-nullable by default, meaning that variables can’t contain null unless you say they can. With null safety, your runtime null-dereference errors turn into edit-time analysis errors.

This podcast episode builds heavily on the official Dart documentation and version announcements.

Resources

Dart language evolutionNull Safety with Randal Schwartz - Flutter 101 PodcastWikipedia on DartMy poll about Dart from the Flutter Munich meetupsGreat packages with extension methodstimedartxkt.dartDart announcementsDart 2.13 - New type aliases language feature, improved Dart FFIDart 2.12 - Sound null safety and Dart FFI ship to the stable channel.Dart 2.7 - A safer, more expressive DartDart 2.3  - Optimized for building user interfacesDart 2.0 - Optimized for client-side developmentOptional semicolons issue on GitHub

Host: Vince Varga

Twitter @vincevargadevGitHub @vincevargadevLinkedIn @vincevargadev