from Hacker News

Dart 3.4: WASM and Macros preview

by markdog12 on 5/14/24, 9:00 PM with 20 comments

• by blopker on 5/14/24, 9:59 PM

  While this release is more about bug fixes, with no stable features, I'm so excited for macros. Dart is an amazing language, but the json story is way too weak for a modern ecosystem.

  Dart is my favorite language right now. The tooling is incredible because they learned from Go's success. Because it compiles to native, it's great for CLI programs. It can also ship as a single binary for servers.

  It's good at so many things, but it's not the best at any one thing. I think that's why it hasn't gotten the same usage as other languages.

• by leecommamichael on 5/15/24, 3:32 AM

  I enjoyed writing Dart in my last role. Supposedly Go was developed as a better C++ for networked apps. Dart feels like the same goal for GUIs. The language authors even bothered to copy the syntax/semantics of initializer-lists on constructors.

• by josephg on 5/14/24, 10:05 PM

  I’m excited to see wasmgc in the browser - which should let a lot more languages compile to small, fast webassembly bundles.

  What’s the state of wasmgc? Is it supported by the major browsers yet? How big are dart apps compiled to wasm?

• by troupo on 5/14/24, 9:49 PM

  It's somewhat weird to see Dart still chugging along. A language that cannot figure out what it's for.

  Was it a better Javascript? Oh, old history

  Was it just a failed project that Google Analytics team used? Oh, old history

  It's for Flutter and app development? Not anymore

  It's native cross-platform compiled language for apps and backend with a hodgepodge of features haphazardly thrown in? Yes, for now.