If you’re interested in Google’s Dart as a potential replacement for JavaScript, you might want to take a peek at Dart Synonym. The Web app was hacked together by Aaron Wheeler and Marcin Wichary of Google to “map common JavaScript idioms to Dart.”
Wichary is best known for his playable Pac-Man Google doodle. Wichary and Wheeler were curious about Dart, and decided to check out the language and libraries during a Dart hackathon with the team.
According to the post, “We started with the basics that every JavaScript and jQuery developer knows: variables, arrays, functions, classes, DOM manipulation, and many more. Then, with the help of the Dart team, we recorded the corresponding Dart versions of each idiom. To practice what we learned, we wrote this app with Dart.”
So the Dart Synonym has the potential to help JavaScript developers learn the differences between the two languages. The sticking point here? You need to be running Dartium to make full use of the app. Dartium is a version of Chromium with DartVM support, and right now you have to build Dartium yourself or hunt the Web for unofficial builds.
Anybody working with Dart yet? We’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on it so far.
