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How is it native if you're just replacing a JavaScript VM with a Dart VM? Or is the Dart somehow compiled to native code?

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Dart has a VM (with hot reloading) for dev time and an AOT compiler for release builds.

I’d say that’s one of the most attractive things about Dart to compensate for yet another language.

How large and invasive is the Dart runtime though? Running in a VM and running with a runtime are only so far apart. And I'm interested in distribution package sizes too.

Here is some info: https://flutter.io/faq/#how-big-is-the-flutter-engine

in summary : a minimal UI app goes from 40k of java code to 6700k of compressed dart code

Not compressed, compiled to machine code.

why does the linked article calls ot out as "compressed" but not mention it for java bytecode?

You’re right, it gets compile to native code

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