Google Developers Experiment With Plumbing Dartlang Into LLVM

It's been a while since last hearing much excitement around Google's Dart programming language that's an alternative to JavaScript. This ECMA-approved language is now being used with IoT devices, can still be source-to-source compiled for JavaScript, and the latest is that the Google developers have been experimenting with wiring it into LLVM.

Dart engineers have finally turned to investigating the LLVM compiler framework now that it's becoming more usable for languages that rely upon garbage collection and can better jive with the Dart approach.

In the brief time they were experimenting with Dart on LLVM, they concluded "Performance of the prototype was on a par with our more mature DartVM-based ahead-of-time solution. For the performance analysis we are making no use of Dart strong mode, which can be expected to yield optimization opportunities that play to LLVM’s strengths. We are, however, making use of some closed world assumptions, which we think are realistic."

But the Dart developers haven't yet decided whether they will pursue a permanent approach of using LLVM or not. Those interested in learning more about the Dart and LLVM experiments can read this interesting Medium.com post.