Sky: An Experiment Writing Dart for Mobile (Dart Developer Summit 2015)

TL;DR framework to build native Android applications using Dart that have highly performant native UI (think React-Native retained mode, functional style). Related talk & demo: [VIDEO] The exciting thing here is that from a developer's point of view sky is just a Dart package and you can immediately start to write an Android application but still keep a fast feedback loop similar to web development (like you've seen in React-Native demos).

It was announced/demoed at the Dart Dev Summit earlier this week (see talk: [VIDEO] ) which imho is fitting. It is still a bit early but you can already follow the related GitHub projects: [LINK]

Seems everyone here is panicking because they think that this means Chrome OS will be killed and Android will be made to run on Chromebooks - but I actually think the signs point to the opposite - Chrome OS becoming the Phone/Tablet OS under a new guise. I wouldn't read too much into a leak filtered through journalists, and instead look at what Google's actually working on: - Google has Chromium developers working on a DART-based Mobile UI framework and execution engine, Flutter ( [LINK] ). It's looking to be far better than the existing Android UI system - built for touch and 120fps from the start. This uses the Dartium VM and a bridge to allow the DART apps to use all the native features of the platform, it's much more than just another web framework. Development on this is very active right now, clearly a sizable team working fulltime - and they're building new developer tools also. There was a talk on this a while ago: [VIDEO] . - Google has built a Runtime to allow existing Android Java-based apps to run on Chrome OS, and is currently testing this and working with developers to get their apps to run on it. It doesn't make much sense to invest in building that out just for chromebooks, since the experience on a Chromebook with Android apps is pretty awful (can't resize etc), but it makes total sense if it's going to be how legacy Java/Android apps run on the new Chrome based phone OS. The sad truth is that Android simply isn't a very well engineered system - it's been imp

Notice that they never say Android is here to stay - Maybe Chrome OS will become the Phone/Tablet OS under a new guise? Google's working on a new UI layer and potential backwards compatibility for older Android apps, which points in that direction: - Chromium developers are working on a DART-based Mobile UI framework and execution engine, Flutter ( [LINK] ). It's looking to be far better than the existing Android UI system - built for touch and 120fps from the start. This uses the Dartium VM and a bridge to allow the DART apps to use all the native features of the platform, it's much more than just another web framework. Development on this is very active right now, clearly a sizable team working fulltime - and they're building new developer tools also. There was a talk on this a while ago: [VIDEO] . - Google has built a Runtime to allow existing Android Java-based apps to run on Chrome OS, and is currently testing this and working with developers to get their apps to run on it. It doesn't make much sense to invest in building that out just for chromebooks, since the experience on a Chromebook with Android apps is pretty awful (can't resize etc), but it makes total sense if it's going to be how legacy Java/Android apps run on the new Chrome based phone OS. The sad truth is that Android simply isn't a very well engineered system - it's been improved over time, but problems persist - like the complex update process leading to unsatisfied users and security problems, poor UI per

"But Flutter choosing Dart" Maybe kotlin was a year too late, not making it to 1.0 till February 15, 2016. The sky project that became flutter was demoed at the April 2015 dart conf. [VIDEO] As regards Javascript, that's what they started with, they looked at other languages and gave dart a go, it gave them faster startup and the dart team offered them stateful hot reload. Anyway working in the chrome space, they prob didn't know that Kotlin existed pre 2015 and prob would have gone with Python if could.

> I don't understand why Flutter's creators are so seemingly religious about Dart I think Dart's history might be relevant here. Flutter was unveiled at a 2015 Dart programmer conference ( [VIDEO] ) and it was originally called Sky. Dart doesn't exist because of Flutter, it's the other way around. Dart was originally intended to be a replacement for Javascript back in 2011, but it utterly failed to gain any adoption because about a year later in 2012, Typescript came out. Typescript being a superset of JavaScript I think completely destroyed any chance Dart could catch on for its original web development goals, since you didn't have to dump JS entirely, just rename .js to .ts and gradually start type-hinting code. Even within Google, they abandoned Dart for Angular and went all in with Typescript. In a way it's refreshing to see Google re-tool an existing language, rather than invent a whole new langauge for cross platform app development, seeing how often as a company, they kill off projects quickly and start whole new ones.