What are the different “configuration modes” for Dart2?

Dev/Prod/Release/Strong/Checked/Asserts OH MY

Our customers (including folks that are really in the Dartiverse, including even @sethladd) are easily confused on Dart2’s different “operating modes” (this is slightly compounded by Flutter having additional “modes”).

In Dart1, there was:

• Normal (?) mode (No asserts, which included type annotation checks)
• Web clients had a production mode, i.e. Dart2JS
  • … which itself had production flags (--minify, and later, --trust-XXX)

In Dart2, we have:

• Normal (strong) mode (No asserts, but yes on type annotation/type checks)
• Web clients have a dev mode (DDC), a production mode (Dart2JS)
  • … in which Dart2JS has production flags (--minify, …)
• To enable assertions in the (VM only?) you use --enable-asserts
  • … which is literally just assert(), differing from Dart1.
• And probably N other modes (profile mode, slow mode) in Flutter.

A couple open questions:

1. Can we pick some terminology and stick with it? I.e. “debug” and “release”.*
2. Can we have some user-facing docs on the differences between the two?
   b. And the differences between these and Dart1’s different modes

*Just as an idea. Feel free to choose other names.