Well that's it folks. Dalvik has reached the end of the line. That's all she wrote. The fat lady has sung. Since ART was released with Android 4.4 – KitKat we knew that this day would come and that Dalvik would finally be able to retire. According to commits made last night to the AOSP master branch, ART is becoming the default. As we can see in the commit below… Dalvik is dead.
Dalvik is dead, long live Dalvik! DO NOT MERGE
croot
cd libcore
repo start dalvik-is-dead-long-live-dalvik .
repo sync -c .
git rm -r libdvm
git add JavaLibrary.mk (after removing libdvm references, adding explict core-libart references)
git add Docs.mk (after replacing references to libdvm with libart)
git add benchmarks/Android.mk (after adding explict core-libart references)
git add Android.mk (after removing dalvik-host target)
git commit -a -m ‘Dalvik is dead, long live Dalvik! DO NOT MERGE’
Dalvik has been the mainstay and even with KitKat ART was experimental — developers going back and forth on whether or not they'd support it for the time being. However, developers won't have a choice anymore. Even so, Dalvik probably won't be missed.
source: XDA
