Google previews new Dart web programming language

Google has introduced a new programming language, Dart, for building web applications.

According to the company, Dart is a structured web programming language that can be used for small one-man projects or large-scale projects and applications.

In a blog post, Lars Bak, software engineer in the Dart team at Google, described the language as a "class-based optionally-typed programming language" for web applications.

He added that Dart will support all modern web browsers and environments, including small mobile devices and server-side execution.

The Dart language and preliminary tools, including a set of basic libraries, are available as open source on the Dart language website.

In the preview version, Dart code can run on a native virtual machine or on top of a Javascript engine using a compiler.

Similar to Javascript, Google said Dart programmes can be directly embedded on HTML pages served to the browser.

"This means you can write a web application in Dart and have it compiled and run on any modern browser," he said.

Bak confirmed plans to explore the potential of integrating the Dart virtual machine in Google's Chrome web browser.