This is a story about an experiment to compile the Dart language using the LLVM compiler framework. On its face this is pretty pointless, since

It’s impossible to deny that immutability is a hot topic in programming, especially front-end programming. Libraries like Immutable.js and other concepts like unidirectional data flow have argued it’s easier to reason about data when it doesn’t change underneath you:

Dart’s built_value provides powerful, convenient immutable values for Dart. The values might be immutable, but the package hasn’t been standing still! In the six months since I last wrote about built_value there have been ten major improvements to the package.

Rejoice, all ye faithful, for Dart 2.0 is coming, and it has types.

In this article we will integrate Google Maps with an AngularDart application. The app itself will be very simple: it calculates the great circle distance (the shortest distance on the surface of a sphere) between two selected markers on the map.