[frontend_server] This adds the ability for the frontend server to be a resident process, allowing it to live through invocations of the Dart CLI. This allows the CLI to utilize the frontend's incremental compilation mode and keep cached kernel files for better performance. This currently only supports VM targets.

When launched as a snapshot, the initial compile is slower than the existing pub approach because of a process start time of around 500 ms. When launched as a compiled executable, initial compile times are the same as the existing pub approach. Once launched, experimental results show times to produce a kernel file of at worst 1.5-2x faster than pub's solution and at best 10x faster than pub's solution. The typical workflow of making changes and recompiling results in an average of a 5x speedup with respect to pub's implementation.

Because compiler instances use a lot of memory, there is a limit on the number of active compilers that the resident server will keep alive, and will actively bring instances down when this limit is exceeded. If the user was previously compiling a given project during the lifespan of a ResidentFrontendServer and its compiler is taken down between requests, a new compiler instance will be allocated for the request. Performance is still between 1.5x-5x faster for this case when compared to pub's compile times.

Change-Id: If9ee1ecc71d660d34faf23381c764dc11d6a5902
Reviewed-on: https://dart-review.googlesource.com/c/sdk/+/252001
Reviewed-by: Siva Annamalai <asiva@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Jake Macdonald <jakemac@google.com>
Commit-Queue: Michael Richards <msrichards@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Alexander Aprelev <aam@google.com>
7 files changed
tree: 6ea5ec5846a36f439462c1141ae614edd257b4f8
  1. .dart_tool/
  2. .github/
  3. benchmarks/
  4. build/
  5. docs/
  6. pkg/
  7. runtime/
  8. samples/
  9. samples-dev/
  10. samples_2/
  11. sdk/
  12. tests/
  13. third_party/
  14. tools/
  15. utils/
  16. .clang-format
  17. .gitattributes
  18. .gitconfig
  19. .gitignore
  20. .gn
  21. .mailmap
  22. .style.yapf
  23. .vpython
  24. AUTHORS
  25. BUILD.gn
  26. CHANGELOG.md
  27. codereview.settings
  28. CONTRIBUTING.md
  29. DEPS
  30. LICENSE
  31. OWNERS
  32. PATENT_GRANT
  33. PRESUBMIT.py
  34. README.dart-sdk
  35. README.md
  36. sdk_args.gni
  37. SECURITY.md
  38. WATCHLISTS
README.md

Dart

A client-optimized language for fast apps on any platform

Dart is:

  • Optimized for UI: Develop with a programming language specialized around the needs of user interface creation.

  • Productive: Make changes iteratively: use hot reload to see the result instantly in your running app.

  • Fast on all platforms: Compile to ARM & x64 machine code for mobile, desktop, and backend. Or compile to JavaScript for the web.

Dart's flexible compiler technology lets you run Dart code in different ways, depending on your target platform and goals:

  • Dart Native: For programs targeting devices (mobile, desktop, server, and more), Dart Native includes both a Dart VM with JIT (just-in-time) compilation and an AOT (ahead-of-time) compiler for producing machine code.

  • Dart Web: For programs targeting the web, Dart Web includes both a development time compiler (dartdevc) and a production time compiler (dart2js).

Dart platforms illustration

License & patents

Dart is free and open source.

See LICENSE and PATENT_GRANT.

Using Dart

Visit dart.dev to learn more about the language, tools, and to find codelabs.

Browse pub.dev for more packages and libraries contributed by the community and the Dart team.

Our API reference documentation is published at api.dart.dev, based on the stable release. (We also publish docs from our beta and dev channels, as well as from the primary development branch).

Building Dart

If you want to build Dart yourself, here is a guide to getting the source, preparing your machine to build the SDK, and building.

There are more documents on our wiki.

Contributing to Dart

The easiest way to contribute to Dart is to file issues.

You can also contribute patches, as described in Contributing.