The secretive inner workings and machinations at Google HQ have at least this month opened up and informed us of news relating to a version 1.1 release of Dart.
The open source web programming language from Google now benefits from new UDP (User Datagram Protocol) support for servers. There are also additional breakpoint locations in the Dart Editor as well as new developer collateral in the form of new documentation to support command-line and server-side Dart applications.
Dart2js now generates JavaScript that performs as well as, if not better than, the idiomatic JavaScript equivalent.
Google's Seth Ladd has said that while there has been (up until now) a lot of focus on Dart for browser applications, there is also growing interest in Dart for server solutions.
"This release provides a number of enhancements for server-side Dart, including support for large files, file copying, process signal handlers, and terminal information. New in this release is support for UDP, which, for example, allows developers to write more efficient media streaming apps," he said.
Dart's JavaScript output is looking OK and performance on the Richards benchmark is 25% better than the first release, making runtime comparable to the original JavaScript. Performance of the newest benchmark, FluidMotion, has doubled since November.
Much of the Dart developer community activity is discussed openly on the Dart Google + pages.
