JavaScript vs Dart: A Quick Comparison To Choose Dominating One

JavaScript (JS) is a lightweight, interpreted, & just-in-time compiled programming language with first-class functions. Though it is well-known as the scripting language for webpages, many non-browser environments such as Node.js also use it. JavaScript is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm, dynamic language that supports object-oriented, imperative, and declarative styles. Like we are talking about JavaScript vs Dart, let’s talk about Dart.

Dart is a client-optimized programming language for fast apps on multiple platforms. It is developed by Google and is used to build the mobile, desktop, backend, and web applications. Dart is an object-oriented, user-defined, & garbage-picked language that works on a C-style syntax that trans-compiles optionally into JavaScript.

JavaScript is everywhere, for better and for worse. You might hate it or love it but you will definitely use it. JavaScript would have been less popular in its early days but since it entered into the server-side mode with node.js, it has grown into giant dominating multiple fields, be it web, or mobile, IoT, & even AI. The web is always the main use case for JavaScript initially, but now though it comprises a large number of an ever-growing list of frameworks like React.js, Angular and Vue, it is more dominant than ever before. A mobile platform never came up as mainstream for JavaScript until Facebook launched its widely popular hybrid mobile app development platform React Native.

Coming to Dart, it never had a rosy start as it came out early in 2011 as a replacement for JavaScript, it holds a lot of potentials. Even though it was developed by Google, it failed to take off and gain followers. It was almost forgotten till the date Flutter came in & rest is history for now. Slowly & steadily, it soon started trending as a promising hybrid mobile development app platform resulting in improved dart’s popularity.

JavaScript vs Dart Comparison

1. Easy to learn

There is no doubt that JavaScript has a very easy learning curve and since it has been around for 2 decades, a lot of learning resources and solutions to common problems are there to make use of it. JavaScript is in high demand at the moment and a lot of frameworks are frequently landing in the market. Being the most preferred modern programming language, JavaScript comes up with all-new features with timely updates.

Dart has great documentation, but most newbies get confused with the Dart language features. The developers with OOPS background can easily pick up the code syntax as the Dart syntax is similar to Java. However, they may struggle a lot to find solutions to the problems in Dart due to lack of community support and resources.

2. Number of Packages

JavaScript has a large number of packages and continues to grow rapidly ever since the start of the npm registry. Currently, the npm registry houses over 350,000 and growing packages & it is the largest package registry in the world.

Dart, on the other hand, is getting popular and its number of packages are going up steadily. However, it might require a bit more time to reach the level of the JavaScript community.

3. Speed

JavaScript is an interpreted language. It’s actually faster than other compiled languages like Java. However, Dart is almost twice as fast as JavaScript.

Dart can be compiled with both AOT and JIT that helps to build apps in several ways as using JIT compilation can speed up development and AOT compilation can be used during the release process for better optimization. This technique has been used in Flutter app development.

4. Type Checking

JavaScript is a dynamically typed language that enables developers to type any code. Programming errors can only be found at runtime and can be avoided by using its superset Typescript or using a type system like Flow as they both add an optional type system that helps in catching runtime error.

Dart supports a type system equivalent to what TypeScript uses. Since Dart is a compiled language, compile-time errors can also be checked side by side. In this context, Dart is more type-safe than JavaScript.

5. Usage

JavaScript is dominating in the world of web development and getting immense popularity in mobile with React Native and Ionic and in desktop with Electron.js. Node.js is highly popular as a backend solution with it’s scalable and fast I/O support.

On the other hand, Dart is getting extensively popular with its mobile development framework i.e Flutter. On the web and desktop platforms, its popularity is all set to grow since the arrival of Hummingbird for the web and Flutter for Desktop for developing desktop apps.

6. Code

Any comparison of programming languages is incomplete without a code comparison. So, let’s check out the most basic program of “Hello World” in both languages.

// JavaScript
// Code execution starts at the top of the code
console.log('Hello world!');

// Dart
main() { // Code execution starts in the main function
    print('Hello world!');
}

7. Popularity Trends

Final Words

When it comes to JavaScript vs Dart, both are great choices for developing cross-platform mobile apps as they are being used in React Native and Flutter respectively. JavaScript is going strong for both web and backend. Although Dart is relatively new in comparison with JavaScript, it wins a race with some cool features and backing from Google. However, JavaScript is also gearing up to get better with newer updates. Hence, the competition between these two languages will go a long way.