A Practical Guide to Dart For absolute beginners

Welcome to Dart's vibrant and flexible universe! Google's modern, open-source Dart programming language excels in building high-performance, cross-platform apps. Dart, a simple and efficient language for web and mobile apps, is the main language for Flutter, a popular UI toolkit for natively built apps. Dart has a strong type system, JIT compilation for speedy development, and AOT compilation for optimized production builds. The concise syntax and object-oriented programming capabilities make it easy for beginners and experts. With its increasing community and commitment to innovation, Dart offers exciting opportunities for adaptable, visually appealing, and scalable software solutions. Doing web programming, mobile app development, or exploring Dart's thriving ecosystem is a voyage into a language designed to empower developers and improve code. Welcome to Dart, where creativity meets utility!


Contents
Chapter-01: Introduction.. 12
Introduction to Dart. 13
Development Environment. 14
Dart SDK.. 14
Dart Editor. 14
Package Manager - Pub. 15
Installing the Dart SDK on Windows. 16
Dart Extension for VS Code. 17
Setting up a Dart Project in VS Code. 18
The Structure of a Dart Project. 19

Chapter-02: Comments and Variables. 21
Comments. 22
Single-line comments. 22
Multi-line comments. 22
Variables. 23
Variable Syntax. 24
Guidelines for Dart Variable Creation.. 25
Dart Keywords. 25
(var) variable. 26
(dynamic) Variable. 28
Compare `var` and `dynamic` Variables. 30
(final) Variable. 32
(const) Variable. 34
Declaration.. 34
Compile-Time Constants. 35
Use Cases. 35
Limitations. 36
Differences from final 36

Chapter-03: Data Types. 37
Dart Built-in Data Types. 38
Numbers. 38
Strings. 41
Booleans. 46

Chapter-04: Operators. 47
Operators. 48
Arithmetic Operators. 48
Assignment Operators. 49
Comparison Operators. 49
Logical Operators. 50
Unary Operators. 51

Chapter-05: Control Flow.. 52
Sequential Execution.. 53
Conditional Statements. 53
Switch Statements. 61
Loops. 65
For Loop.. 65
While Loop.. 68
Do-While Loop.. 70
Break and Continue. 72

Chapter-06: Functions. 73
Functions. 75
Anatomy of Dart Function.. 75
Parameters. 76
Arrow Functions. 86
Anonymous Functions. 88
Levels in Functions. 89
Top Level Functions. 89
Nested Functions. 90

Chapter-07: Collections. 91
Lists. 92
Creating Lists. 92
Accessing Elements in a List. 94
List Length. 95
List Methods. 95
Sets. 106
Maps. 110
Summary. 116

Chapter-08: Classes. 119
Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). 121
Principles of OOP.. 121
Benefits of OOP.. 123
Basics of Classes in Dart. 125
Definition of a Class. 125
Objects and Instances. 129
Encapsulation.. 144
Private and Public Members. 145
Getters and Setters. 146
Inheritance. 152
Basics of Inheritance in Dart. 152
Purpose of Inheritance. 153
Types of Inheritance in Dart. 153
Syntax of Inheritance in Dart. 154
Inheritance of constructor in dart. 157
Using the `super` Keyword. 160
Overriding Methods and Properties. 164