Overview of Dart on the Server

Most large-scale websites use server-side code to dynamically display different data when needed, generally pulled out of a database stored on a server and sent to the client to be displayed via some code.

The most significant benefit of server-side code is that it allows you to modify the website content for individual users. Dynamic sites can highlight content that is more relevant based on user preferences and habits.

The primary focus of Dart 2 is building a common front-end that Dart code is processed through; code will go through the same toolchain, regardless of whether it targets the Dart Virtual Machine or JavaScript.

The need for an Improved Backend Framework for Dart

Using dart language, it is possible to develop the front and back ends of an application together. However, in Dart backend, there is no framework like Flutter that is easy to comprehend, suits community development and utilizes the class structure.

Flutter developers mainly employ Firebase for backend development. While frameworks like Firebase have many advantages, many developers feel that there is a need for improvement in service flexibility, pricing policy, and integration of third-party apps. 

Dart Frog: Redefining approach to Backend Development

Felix Angelov in this blog post announced that Very Good Ventures have launched an experimental framework called ‘Dart Frog’ that helps developers successfully build backends using Dart. Dart Frog would enable Dart and Flutter developers to utilize a combined set of tools that would let them share tools and models. 

It also entails a simple core and a minimal Public API in order to reduce complexities, ramp-up, and user-load time. Dart Frog aims to optimize the backend development approach by having backends that aggregate and utilize data from multiple sources.

Features

• Dart Development Tools

• Improve HTTP method specification per handler

• DartFrog Testing Library (utilities for unit and e2e testing)

• CLI new command to generate new routes and middleware

• Hot Reload

• File System Routing

• Index, Nested & Dynamic Routes

• Dependency Injections

• Production Build

• Docker

• Generated Dart Client Package

• Generated API Documentation

How to Start using Dart Frog?

1. Make sure that you have Dart SDK installed on your device

2. Install Dart Frog from the Github source by entering the command: dart pub global activate dart_frog_cli

3. Create a new project using dart_frog create command

4. Open the dev server using the dart_frog dev command

5. Create a production build using dart_frog build command

How does Dart Frog modify the Backend approach?

Dynamic Routes

Dynamic routes require routers to exchange information with other routers to learn about paths through the network. Dart Frog supports dynamic routes. For instance, if you create a file called routes/posts/<id>.dart, it will be accessible at /posts/1, /posts/2, etc. Routing parameters will then be forwarded to OnRequest

Dynamic Routes are straightforward to configure, adapt to network topology changes, and work well in a network with multiple routes.

Middleware

Middleware are a bunch of commands that are stacked on the pipeline to handle requests (calls made by the user to your server and can contain different types of parameters). 

Using Dart Frog, you can execute code before and after a request is processed. You can modify the inbound request, outbound responses, and provide dependencies. This will be possible by a piece of middleware consisting of a middleware function exported from a _middleware.dart file within a subdirectory of the routes folder.

Testing

Dart primarily focuses on three kinds of testing: ‘Unit’, ‘Component’, ‘Integration, and end to end tests. The package:test is a useful Dart library for writing tests through which you can write single tests, groups of tests, write asynchronous tests and use the @TestOn to restrict tests to run on specific environments.

Using Dart Frog, you can now run unit tests on route handlers and middleware successfully. This is made possible by the package:test

Dependencies

Dependency Injection is a way of making the dependencies of an object available via another object, and these dependencies are usually known as services. In dart, the most basic way to handle dependency injection is by passing services to a class through the constructor.

Dart Frog allows Middleware(constructor) to provide dependencies to a RequestContext(Class) via a provider. RequestContext contains information about the HTTP request in the HttpContext property

Provider is a T-class middleware that manages the lifecycle of the value it provides by delegating to a pair of Create and Dispose. It can create and provide a type T instance to the request context.

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