What is the Difference between Dart and Golang?

August 18, 2022

What is the Difference between Dart and Golang? So, straight to the question. Which is better? Dart or Golang? I’m sure you won’t be able to settle the difference quickly. This is because each language has unique purposes, features, merits, and demerits. While a development company would surely highlight only the positives, I’m going to disclose all the secrets of both Dart and Golang.

Difference between Dart and Golang

So, let us delve right into it and assess the differences based on the different parameters.

1. Language Model

Dart is an open-source and statically typed programming language used both on the user and server sides. The language has several resemblances with a dynamically typed language. Dart, developed at Google, is quite useful for developing simple apps.

Golang is another open-source statically typed and secure programming language that was also developed at Google. It is mainly used for backend development and is heavily used for systems programming, building web applications, cloud computing, etc.

2. Compiled vs Interpreted

Dart is an interpreted compiler language. This is because the Dart Virtual Machine works like an interpreter. Furthermore, you can compile Dart code into native codes. You can even compile programs to native *64 machine code to run them in Command Prompt or Terminal. You get to see both JIT and AOT compilations.

Golang program codes are AOT compiled into machine codes. The language syntaxes are developed in such a way so as to enable fast compilation, and you get a very small resulting binary. The AOT also offers better security.

3. Performance

Dart was not created to compete with high-performance languages like Golang and C++. It is single-threaded and gets the job done in a reasonable amount of time. However, in order to perform more than one operation at a time, it takes the help of Future objects. In order to perform concurrent operations, it takes the help of async-await, classes like Stream, and isolates.

Golang, being a concurrent language, is extremely fast. You have already read about the fast compilation speed. Furthermore, the channels help in maintaining proper synchronization and communication between different goroutines. This helps in efficient multi-treading CSP-style concurrency maintenance and parallelism.

4. Classes, Constructors, Destructors, and Inheritance

Dart is an object-oriented language. Hence, it supports classes along with constructors and destructors. Thus, it also supports the concept of Inheritance. This is the phenomenon by which the child class gets to inherit the properties of the parent class.

Golang is a procedural language and there is no type of hierarchy. Golang has types and methods, but no support for classes, constructors, and destructors. Thus, it does not support inheritance as well. But, it does offer a solution to this deficiency. And that is struct embedding. Furthermore, with composition, developers can choose different features instead of classes, and there is no resistance to modification.

5. Passing of a Map

Map is passed by value in the case of Dart. A map signifies a dynamic collection and is simply a key/value pair. Although Dart doesn’t have support for pass-by reference, the language consists of first-class closures that can wrap around variables. Thus, by passing a setter and a getter function, you can pass a reference. But it is not that convenient.

In Golang, you can set a map to nil. Thus, maps are basically treated as pointers, as map types signify reference types. What usually happens is that when we pass a map to a specific function or assign a reference to a particular variable (a new one), a copy of the reference to the map takes place.

Meanwhile, if you have an intricate project to solve and are unable to, you can take the help of a Golang development company. Make sure to do your research well, and check whether the experts have any experience in creating REST APIs, web applications, backend development, etc. Only then you should go ahead with your decision.

6. Looping Options

In Dart, both while and do_while loops are supported. In the case of a while loop, before a block of code is implemented, the loop checks for the condition. Only if it is true, then the code executed. The do-while loop behaves a bit differently. It executes a particular block of code and then checks for the condition. The interaction goes on if the condition turns out to be true.

Golang does not support both the while and do while statements. However, you can modify the ‘for loop’ to act like a while loop. The for loop in Golang is used in conjunction with a Boolean expression. But, there is no do-while loop in the case of Golang.

7. API Documentation

Dart has support for semi-co routines when it comes to API documentation. You can generate the API reference automatically from the source code when it is in the Dart SDK project.

You can generate API documentation for Golang easily and automatically with Swagger 2.0. The Swag keyword helps in converting the Golang annotations to Swagger Documentation 2.0.

8. SDK (Software Development Kit)

The SDK is a package where you will find various tools packed in order to develop software for a specific platform. If you wish to develop apps, you can use Dart’s own SDK which has tools and libraries. The general structure of the SDK is: lib, bin, and include directories. Following this, you have a version, LICENSE, and README files.

In Golang, the package SDK makes it easier for developers to integrate various applications of Go with AWS services. The AWS SDK offers APIs to work with Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2. In order to retrieve it, you have to type: go get github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go

These are some of the differences that we get to see when we compare both Dart and Golang. Ultimately, it is a matter of preference and requirements. While Golang is mainly geared towards systems engineering and server-side programming, Dart is designed more towards UI and simple app creation. Also, you may find one language easier to learn than another. So, choose accordingly.

Guest post by Ankit Rajput