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Think of it the other way around: Dart was created for the sake of Flutter. You seem to think that the framework designers at Google just decided to pick a nic

Think of it the other way around: Dart was created for the sake of Flutter. You seem to think that the framework designers at Google just decided to pick a niche language called Dart to write Flutter in when they could have picked Javascript to write Flutter in. No. They decided to make the design of Flutter as a framework so clean and pure that they would have to work backwards to figure out what language it would need to be written in and then they created Dart. At least that's how I like to imagine it.

account-5 3y ago
Wasn't dart originally a JavaScript replacement that never got off the ground, and older than flutter by about 8 years? My understanding is no one was using dart really prior to flutter due to that history. Though it was obviously pivoted for flutter. I don't have an issue with any of this though.
Slartie 3y ago
As far as I know, Dart was created beforehand in order to "replace" Javascript. That did never work out, it never got any real traction, so Dart eventually stumbled around without any real purpose. Then Flutter came, used Dart (because they needed some language like JS, but not JS, and Dart was "there" and could be used because it was a Google product) and then Flutter started to gain traction, and so did Dart, but only as a side effect of Flutter now being the only real "user" of the language.
- g8oz 3y ago
  Apart from Flutter another "user" I'm aware of is the reference implementation of Sass (the CSS preprocessor language), which is now written in Dart. https://sass-lang.com/ https://sass-lang.com/
matt_trentini 3y ago
I'm afraid you are imagining it. Dart pre-dates Flutter by a few years and had failed (a couple of times) as a web development language before Flutter chose to employ it. Would Dart be around today, outside of Google if not for Flutter? Seems unlikely. Flutter indeed did decide to pick a niche language, albeit one that was used internally at Google. Tim Sneath discusses it on Software Engineering Radio: https://www.se-radio.net/2020/12/episode-437-tim-sneath-on-architecture-of-flutter/ https://www.se-radio.net/2020/12/episode-437-tim-sneath-on-a...

account-5 3y ago

Wasn't dart originally a JavaScript replacement that never got off the ground, and older than flutter by about 8 years? My understanding is no one was using dart really prior to flutter due to that history. Though it was obviously pivoted for flutter. I don't have an issue with any of this though.

Slartie 3y ago

As far as I know, Dart was created beforehand in order to "replace" Javascript. That did never work out, it never got any real traction, so Dart eventually stumbled around without any real purpose. Then Flutter came, used Dart (because they needed some language like JS, but not JS, and Dart was "there" and could be used because it was a Google product) and then Flutter started to gain traction, and so did Dart, but only as a side effect of Flutter now being the only real "user" of the language.

g8oz 3y ago
Apart from Flutter another "user" I'm aware of is the reference implementation of Sass (the CSS preprocessor language), which is now written in Dart. https://sass-lang.com/ https://sass-lang.com/

matt_trentini 3y ago

I'm afraid you are imagining it. Dart pre-dates Flutter by a few years and had failed (a couple of times) as a web development language before Flutter chose to employ it. Would Dart be around today, outside of Google if not for Flutter? Seems unlikely. Flutter indeed did decide to pick a niche language, albeit one that was used internally at Google. Tim Sneath discusses it on Software Engineering Radio: https://www.se-radio.net/2020/12/episode-437-tim-sneath-on-architecture-of-flutter/ https://www.se-radio.net/2020/12/episode-437-tim-sneath-on-a...