Call dart2js directly from sdk/bin.

dart/sdk/bin/dart2js

 #!/bin/bash
 # Copyright (c) 2012, the Dart project authors.  Please see the AUTHORS file
 # for details. All rights reserved. Use of this source code is governed by a
 # BSD-style license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
 
-# Setting BIN_DIR this way is ugly, but is needed to handle the case where
-# dart-sdk/bin has been symlinked to. On MacOS, readlink doesn't work
-# with this case.
-BIN_DIR="$(cd "${0%/*}" ; pwd -P)"
+# Unlike $0, $BASH_SOURCE points to the absolute path of this file.
+PROG_NAME="$BASH_SOURCE"
 
-unset COLORS
+# Handle the case where dart-sdk/bin/dart2js has been symlinked to.
+while [ -h "${PROG_NAME}" ]; do
+  # On Mac OS, readlink -f doesn't work.
+  PROG_NAME="$(readlink "${PROG_NAME}")"
+done
+
+# Handle the case where dart-sdk/bin has been symlinked to.
+BIN_DIR="$(cd "${PROG_NAME%/*}" ; pwd -P)"
+while [ -h "${BIN_DIR}" ]; do
+  # On Mac OS, readlink -f doesn't work.
+  BIN_DIR="$(readlink "${BIN_DIR}")"
+done

[kustermann, 2012/11/28 08:53:50]

Since you do this procedure two times (following symlinks) you could make it a
function.

[ahe, 2012/11/28 11:53:25]

Done.

+
+SDK_DIR="$(cd "${BIN_DIR}/.." ; pwd -P)"
+
+DART2JS="$SDK_DIR/lib/_internal/compiler/implementation/dart2js.dart"
+DART="$BIN_DIR/dart"
+
+unset EXTRA_OPTIONS
+declare -a EXTRA_OPTIONS
+
 if test -t 1; then
   # Stdout is a terminal.
   if test 8 -le `tput colors`; then
     # Stdout has at least 8 colors, so enable colors.
-    COLORS="--enable-diagnostic-colors"
+    EXTRA_OPTIONS[${#EXTRA_OPTIONS[@]}]='--enable-diagnostic-colors'
   fi
 fi
 
-unset SNAPSHOT
-if test -f "$BIN_DIR/../lib/_internal/compiler/implementation/dart2js.dart.snapshot"; then
+unset EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS
+declare -a EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS
+
+SNAPSHOT="$SDK_DIR/_internal/compiler/implementation/dart2js.dart.snapshot"
+if test -f "$SNAPSHOT"; then
   # TODO(ahe): Remove the following line when we are relatively sure it works.
-  echo Using snapshot "$BIN_DIR/../lib/_internal/compiler/implementation/dart2js.dart.snapshot" 1>&2
-  SNAPSHOT="--use_script_snapshot=$BIN_DIR/../lib/_internal/compiler/implementation/dart2js.dart.snapshot"
+  echo Using snapshot "$SNAPSHOT" 1>&2
+  EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[${#EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[@]}]="--use_script_snapshot=$SNAPSHOT"
 fi
-exec "$BIN_DIR"/dart --no_use_inlining --heap_growth_rate=32 $SNAPSHOT "$BIN_DIR/../lib/_internal/compiler/implementation/dart2js.dart" $COLORS "$@"
+
+# Tell the VM to grow the heap more aggressively. This should only
+# be necessary temporarily until the VM is better at detecting how
+# applications use memory.
+# TODO(ahe): Remove this option (http://dartbug.com/6495).
+EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[${#EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[@]}]='--heap_growth_rate=512'

[ricow1, 2012/11/27 18:28:35]

This seems almost insane - I think the default max heap size is 512 MB so how
can we even grow this much on an existing heap?

Did you try experimenting with other flags like --new_gen_heap_size? I would
think that a bigger newspace may actually help here (in the long term hopefully
not, but at the moment probably so)

[ahe, 2012/11/28 11:53:25]

The flag is documented as:

heap_growth_rate: 4 (The size the heap is grown, in heap pages)

As far as I can tell, the heap page size is:

  static const intptr_t kPageSize = 256 * KB;

256*1024*512 = 128M

Regardless, this option is already added to dart2js and have shown improved
compile-time on our internal performance tracker.  This change is simply to make
sure we use the same value everywhere.  See the deleted file build_helper.dart.

+
+# Tell the VM to don't bother inlining methods. So far it isn't

[ricow1, 2012/11/27 18:28:35]

The comment could be misunderstood as saying that it does not pay of the disable
inlining, how about:
So far it isn't -> So far inlining isn't

[ahe, 2012/11/28 11:53:25]

Done.

+# paying off but the VM team is working on fixing that.
+# TODO(ahe): Remove this option (http://dartbug.com/6495).
+EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[${#EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[@]}]='--no_use_inlining'
+
+case $0 in
+  *_developer)
+    EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[${#EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[@]}]='--checked'
+    ;;
+esac
+
+exec "$DART" "${EXTRA_VM_OPTIONS[@]}" "$DART2JS" "${EXTRA_OPTIONS[@]}" "$@"