The Pheasant Framework: A Look into Modern Web Development in Dart

Hacker News

Share card

The Pheasant Framework: A Look into Modern Web Development in Dart

I was trying to do some web development in Dart, because I have enjoyed the Dart language as of recent. The package management, interop with JavaScript (even though it's been a bit of a pain) and vast number of libraries has made my experience with the language one to truly enjoy. However, I noticed that Dart could be used for web development, and I was interested in finding out more. I had two options: create a flutter application and render on the web, or go with AngularDart. Flutter is the main framework most people use and is the first thing that usually comes to mind when people talk about Dart. However, it really hasn't had much focus on the web, and of course this has made it a bit far from the perfect choice for writing web applications that can compete with others. AngularDart is also a very good option, but I haven't really been much of a fan of Angular, and I've usually preferred using a component based framework that brings your JavaScript (or Dart in this case) into your HTML - much like Vue or Svelte. Then I found a new web framework that recently came out named - Pheasant. It was exactly something like what I was looking for - component-based, feature-rich, and it compiles to Dart Code using the Dart Build System (the build system developed by Dart that AngularDart uses), so there is no virtual DOM. The framework makes it easy to write web applications by using the power and performance of Dart. The component files look much like what you would find in Vue and Svelte, except there are no hidden or extra keywords, meaning that you can write plain dart code and it would render. You could also work with dart files seamlessly, and has first-hand support for Sass and SCSS. One feature I found enjoyable and one that will make me to continuously utilize the framework is its ability to render Markdown Code (makes static site generation easy). The framework may not be a heavyweight like those in the JavaScript world because of the differences in programming between Dart and JavaScript, but when it comes to web development and being able to utilize the performance of dart, as well as the dart ecosystem, the framework does prove to be a very useful tool in creating quick and simple web applications. The framework even promises to work for both Dart and JavaScript developers by creating their own JavaScript pipeline to reduce dart2js compilation on JavaScript components. If you want to check out more on the framework, as well as it's source code, you can go to github: https://github.com/pheasantframework/pheasant The project hasn't hit 0.1.0 yet - it's still on pre-release (the current version is good enough for simple web applications) - but I'm sure if the Dart Community could look into it and show support, the project would be one for Dart to show off in the near future.