Dart is looking at adding pattern matching and "record" types: https://github.com/dart-lang/language/tree/master/working/05...
In Why nullable types?dart-lang
language
TeX2018–2025
dart-lang / language
language
Design of the Dart language
32Distinct people
64Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
2.9KGitHub stars
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Design of the Dart language
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 2:04:58 PM UTC.
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HN mentions by year64 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-11-15 23:12:25 UTC to 2025-07-19 11:20:43 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
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| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 13 | 1 | 12 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 14 | 4 | 10 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Dart language evolution
This repository is the home for the design and evolution of the Dart
programming language. While the nature of language evolution is somewhat
unstructured, we follow a defined process to design and ship language
changes.
The language funnel shows the features that are being actively worked on.
Dart language team
As of February 2026, the Dart language team consists of:
Leaf Petersen (@leafpetersen)
Lasse R.H. Nielsen (@lrhn)
Bob Nystrom (@munificent)
Erik Ernst (@eernstg)
Nate Bosch (@natebosch)
Jake MacDonald (@jakemac53)
Paul Berry (@stereotype441)
Kallen Tu (@kallentu)
David Morgan (@davidmorgan)
Michael Thomsen (@mit-mit) is the product manager
for Dart. Erik Ernst also maintains the official language specification.
Contributing
We discuss language problems and potential features using the issue tracker
on this repo. We welcome your participation! Please keep in mind:
If you want to show support for a proposed change, a 👍 reaction is more
helpful than a comment because it's easier for us to aggregate demand that
way. Comments that provide additional context are still useful, though.
Before filing a new issue describing a problem or language change, see if
there is already an existing issue that's close to yours. Duplicate or
near-duplicates tend to divide attention and make both of them less visible.
When discussing a language change, motivating examples from real world code
are very helpful for the team and others following along to see how the
change would be helpful in a concrete context.
While other languages often have excellent beloved features, those features
don't always translate well to Dart (and vice versa). When proposing that
we borrow some feature from another language, try to articulate why you
think that feature would be right for Dart in particular. We want Dart to be
the best Dart, not the second-best Rust/Haskell/TypeScript/etc.
License and patents
See LICENSE and PATENTS.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
7 sourcesAs always, nice article. Just wanted to point out in case people are curious that Dart is looking at adding pattern matching, since it's mentioned in the article.
https://github.com/dart-lang/language/tree/master/working/05...
@munificent, not sure if that's the link you'd want.
In Why Nullable Types?Does freezed feel nice in day-to-day use, or is it more of an incomplete/leaky hack?
I'm planning on writing a library in Dart that implements a custom TCP protocol, and I think ADTs would be the best fit for capturing all the valid states and error conditions. I really don't want to have a bunch of nullable fields or use the visitor pattern :/
I've been tracking this issue [0] and hopefully with the release of null safety, the team will have the time to implement ADTs!
[0] https://github.com/dart-lang/language/issues/349
In Understanding null safety in Dartnewtype dart proposal: https://github.com/dart-lang/language/blob/master/working/st...
In Understanding null safety in Dart> Dart still has all types nullable by default
TypeScript is even worse in that regard since it has to deal with JS that wasn't written in TypeScript & there's no way to verify the runtime object complies with the interface you say it does. Then of course JS has to deal with multiple null & undefined values & even more falsy values, ultimately TypeScript provides nice static analysis but also a false sense of security as there's no guarantee that the compile time static analysis matches the actual types / values at runtime.
At least with Dart, you're guaranteed everything is written in Dart so you can have confidence in the static type analysis is actually going to be valid at runtime. With that said you can use the `--enable-experiment=non-nullable` to enable its Sound non-nullable Types feature [1]
> The expresiveness, the ability to ac
Read the rest
curately describe data structures with its type system just doesn't seem to be there. It seems about on par with Java in that regard.
This is a gross mischaracterization that I'm just going to assume you're familiar with Dart at all. It's vastly more modern and less verbose than Java in basically all aspects: type declarations, auto properties/getters/setters, auto constructors, implicit interfaces, factory constructors, mixins, typedefs, inference, lambdas, async/await, extension methods, optional parameters, string interpolation, single integer type, cascade/chaining, null guards/assignment/coalescing, generators, operator overloading, Callable classes, first class functions, everything's an object, duck typing with noSuchMethod, etc.
[1] https://github.com/dart-lang/language/issues/110
As for nulls, non-nullability is currently in the works: https://github.com/dart-lang/language/blob/master/accepted/f...
In Flutter and Dart, or how to quickly build a mobile app without losing your hair> they still made every single type nullable
NNBD is almost here:
https://github.com/dart-lang/language/blob/master/accepted/f...
In Flutter and Dart, or how to quickly build a mobile app without losing your hair