alt Hacker NewsFlutter 3.47
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Does anyone know if the original promise of their simple layout model proved itself?
IIRC, the Flutter team mentioned how using just width/height constraints is enough to represent all relevant layouts. This sounds very nice, being so much simpler than Flexbox and miles ahead of CSS Grid ergonomics.
Did it live up to the promise or did they expand the model with Flex/Grid/etc?
While I've used Flutter since Alpha, I've been away for a few years. A few things have shocked me in these release notes: how come Impeller still wasn't the default engine for all platforms? Also, why are they migrating to WASM if one of the core features of Dart is compiling to JavaScript? Finally, how come multi window support only get viable now, after four years having desktop support?
Honestly, Flutter is an extremely enjoyable development experience I would recommend anyone I care for to stay away from. The fact it's developed by Google doesn't help: it's a matter of time before they kill it like they did with so many UI libraries and frameworks already, specially with JetBrains developing Compose Multiplatform and the Android team going all-in in the Compose strategy.
Oh finally multi-window support - I might finally be able to flutter for a simple desktop app side project I've been wanting to build.
Are Flutter and React Native still viable choices today?
I get the impression that more are going for native mobile, KMP or PWA.
I vouch for Flutter over React Native; we built https://macrocodex.app/ with 16,000+ users already!
And it's completely free no ads, no subscriptions, or donations, for the public benefit of improving health and fitness.
It's a guaranteed weight loss or gain app; results within 2-5 weeks! Don't believe? well just read reviews.
The Flutter development experience is very smooth; you rarely run into any issues, just be careful not to block the UI isolate. That's all.
My experience is in Backend and this is the first time i built a mobile app.
Some limitations are from the underlying platform and not Flutter. Initially, I thought the lack of OTA was a dealbreaker (as App Store / Play Store approvals are a slow loop) and Expo might be better, but the lack of OTA made me structure the app differently and it turned out it's not as big of a deal actually.
We also managed to have a PWA app (for nearly free) by using Flutter web, so it also runs on devices which do not support the Play Store or App Store, giving us max coverage across the board.
We tested react native but found it slow (your code runs in Hermes VM so you need to write native code to offload) and dev tools aren't as good as flutters imho. Dart AOT, which is what runs on iOS/Android, is much faster by default, so you'll hardly ever feel any need to write native code. And when you do need to write native code—we use some for WorkManager and HealthConnect—it's very easy! Just be careful with R8; you might have to set rules, or it can sometimes break things!
great for mobile apps, fine for desktops, basically unusable for browsers unless you do wasm, if web can be revamped/improved it can be the best option for cross platform GUI
Tested lots of flutter desktop apps on Github last year. All have sluggish animation. FPS rarely reached 60.
The one thing I hate about flutter is the ui code having an ungodly amount of nested brackets.
I just moved out last month, it's just pain after sometime now, it's okay and good for mobile cross, when it comes to desktop, I'd have to struggle to support linux with quick hangs
how's Dart for back end development? is anybody using it to build APIs? the syntax doesn't look too bad
If anyone is interested to see the WASM + canvas renderer performance compared to Android/iOS builds, I've build my app for the web.
The web app is here: https://app.vocabuo.com (completely free) And the links for Android/iOS builds are here: https://vocabuo.com (soft paywall)
To an untrained eye who does not care about dropping a few frames, the web version is almost indistinguishable from the "native" build. Especially if you add it to homescreen from safari to hide the navigation bar.
> Linux and Windows now support popup windows, allowing you to build native context menus and utility palettes.
How does such a basic feature only get added so late?
Need to let this project die and invest the manpower + experience into something useful.
Very happy that it's still maintain, because that's the only real framework that allow an easy dev for a decently fast app with one code base that works on linux, windows, mac, ios and android at once.
It's super nice.
Of all the myriad projects from Google, how is Flutter/Dart the one that survived the axe? I’m not saying I hate them - I think they’re both really neat - I just don’t understand why Google keeps these limping along with weak support and no clear vision within their broader web ecosystem.
Awesome. I'd love if Flutter could also finally get Impeller on Web (I'm tracking the GitHub issues, seems like there's progress at least).
I personally would like for it to pick up some ideas from Svelte.
the "Text and selection" demo caught my attention, why flutter render the shortcuts bar itself and not delegate this to the underlaying os?
Flutter is good on its own but dev tooling and long compile times kills all the enjoyment.
Been waiting especially for multi-window so it can be picked up by Flet.
I've never used Kotlin, but I really enjoy Flutter. Not nearly as much as SwiftUI and the Lord's language, mind you.
Flutter can get you up and running quickly. If I want cross-plaform support, one codebase is hard to beat.
flutter should 100% drop web target. if you disagree you never used flutter for real, or are lying to yourself while employed by google to work on flutter
I always find it strange that flutter isn’t built with golang or typescript. Why use a new language? When flutter came out both languages existed so curious about that.
The main reason i can think of is generics not existing initially
> We are actively working toward enabling WebAssembly (Wasm) by default for Flutter web applications, bringing native-like performance to the browser.
lol.
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I still prefer React Native with Expo over Flutter, mostly for practical reasons:
* Language and hiring: TypeScript has a much larger developer pool. Dart is a solid language, but finding experienced Flutter engineers is harder.
* Platform model: React Native maps much more naturally to native platform concepts. Flutter owns much more of the rendering stack, which is powerful, but also creates another abstraction layer between the app and the platform.
* Performance: Flutter can absolutely be fast, so I would not claim otherwise. My experience, however, is that RN has required less work to get interactions and animations that feel consistently native.
* Ecosystem: RN benefits from the broader React, TypeScript, JavaScript, and native ecosystems. Expo has also improved dramatically and now covers a large part of the usual mobile platform work.
* Platform-specific features: neither framework completely eliminates native code. Things like widgets, Live Activities, Dynamic Island, extensions, NFC, and other platform APIs eventually bring you back to Swift/Kotlin anyway.
* Migration to native: if the long-term destination is Swift and Kotlin, I find RN a better intermediate representation. Its component model and platform integration are closer to native concepts, which also makes the codebase easier for agents to translate incrementally into proper native applications.
That said, these are trade-offs, not claims that Flutter is bad. Flutter has improved a lot, and for teams that want a highly consistent cross-platform UI, its rendering model can be an advantage.