HTML5DevConf May 2014: Don Olmstead, Sony Network Entertainment: Dart for Game Developers
Dart is a language designed for the modern web. It is a simple object oriented language that's instantly familiar to C++, Java and C# developers. It provides optional static types, allowing for programmer's and their tools to easily reason about a program; a strict runtime and analysis tools that will inform the programmer when they make mistakes; and a more constrained language that is better suited for optimizing. All of these things can be used to build robust scalable applications on the web, especially for game developers targeting the web.
Games continually push what's possible on a platform, and HTML5 coupled with WebGL, makes the browser a compelling platform for game developers to target. With Dart, game developers can rapidly create their games using its rich tooling. The ecosystem around Dart is meant to provide greater performance than what is currently possible on the web, either through the Dart Virtual Machine or by being compiled to JavaScript. This is integral to getting more work done in a single frame, and pushing the boundaries of game development within the browser.
This presentation will provide a primer to the Dart programming language and how it can be used by game developers. An overview of the language and its capabilities will be discussed, within the context of a developer targeting WebGL.