Preface

In October 2011, rumor became reality when Google released a new language aimed at developing complex, Google-scale web applications. An internal Google email titled “Future of JavaScript” had appeared on the web a month earlier, indicating that a language, possibly to be known as Dash, was undergoing development within Google, with the aim of being a better language for the web than JavaScript. Born out of frustration with the slow progress in evolving JavaScript, partly caused by the numerous interested parties and committees, this new language aimed to be everything JavaScript could be if it were invented now. Its key goal was to “maintain the dynamic nature of JavaScript, but have a better performance profile and be amenable to tooling for large projects.” It would also be able to cross-compile to JavaScript. This language was released as a technical preview to the wider world and given the name Dart.