Flutter Release Preview 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#51

Post by monkmartinez » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 4:47 AM UTC

nevi-me wrote: post #23

EDIT: formatting Almost everyone here talks about abandonment. It's become a sad Google reality, but I'd hazard that some people are posting from Google Chrome, which would defeat the point about worrying. I use Flutter, I've released an app that's been in prod for about 5 months now. Flutter runs on Dart, which is a Google-bred language. From my little knowledge, most/some of the people working on Dart are the team…

> but I'd hazard that some people are posting from Google Chrome, which would defeat the point about worrying.

Uhhh, how do you draw that conclusion? There are lots of browsers and they take literally zero time to learn. Comparing a browser to programming language or framework is apples and oranges.

> Is Google going to abandon Flutter, what about Dart? Should I not learn Go because they'll also abandon it? Heck, should I not develop for Android because they'll abandon it too?

I have been a strict Android user for years. Google has effectively abandoned it with the way they've managed the project. I am moving to iOS for a variety of reasons, one of which is that I know where they (Apple) stand with the platform.

I wouldn't learn Go or Kotlin either, honestly, as there are arguably lots of languages that do the same with less separation anxiety.

My only mobile apps are Android only and regret it. I was a big android advocate and now I am not. I have been excited too many times and let down too many times to really care at this point. Google really wasted a lot of my time in retrospect. They announced projects like they are the second coming only to kill them once you have invested countless hours of time learning. I still have the OG Android ADK from I/o 2011...

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#52

Post by crudbug » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 4:47 AM UTC

I was looking at this last week. The lack of native tree representation, similar to JSX would make this ideal.

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#53

Post by Bendingo » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 4:48 AM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #41

timsneath wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the kind comments! I'm one of the product managers on the Flutter team, so you're welcome to apply suitable skepticism to anything I might say in response to your last point, but I will say that Flutter is already being used in many strategic projects here at Google, as well as for many customer apps, some of which already have tens of millions of users. For example, Alibaba are using it to build one of th…

I think you are attempting to present a solution to a problem you can't possibly help with. No individual at Google can assuage any concerns caused by the corporation as a whole. (maybe the CEO could?)

Assuage =/= Eliminate

GP has certainly assuaged[1] (although not eliminated) my concerns.

[1] assuage, verb, make (an unpleasant feeling) less intense.

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#54

Post by stewbrew » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 4:50 AM UTC

Why do they want me to learn a new language to make use of a gui runtime+lib? Seriously. What makes that language that revolutionary so that nothing else, no other tried & tested & loathed language, could have been used instead? I don't see it.

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#55

Post by jrs95 » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 4:57 AM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #48

jrs95 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really isn't an alternative for what Flutter does, which is high quality cross platform apps that don't require separate UI code. Xamarin has Forms, but the UX is not nearly at the level of what you get from Flutter, and it would require some serious rework of how they render their widgets for that to change. Other solutions like Qt are just lagging behind, as much as I wish that weren't the case. Ultimately I…

At one point there wasn't an alternative to Angular either, look what we have now. Not only that, there's still native. Which means anyone can easily hold out that is on the fence for who knows what comes in the future. Principles matter at some level, which is why many businesses abandoned Godaddy a few years back. But also there's simple budget considerations. Google has cost us tons of money over the years adjusti…

I'd argue people left GoDaddy because their services suck. At least, that's been my experience with them. And at the same time, what they were doing wasn't unique, you have nearly unlimited alternatives in that space. I hope you're right with the Angular comparison though, I would love to see other projects move in a direction that truly competes with what Flutter is doing. As for native...you're right, I'll continue to tolerate it because none of the cross platform solutions are really "there" yet, Flutter included at the moment. It's interesting from a technical perspective, but I wouldn't bet on it for a serious project until it at least hits 1.0

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#56

Post by monkmartinez » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

nevi-me wrote: post #34

strken wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The migration from Chrome to Firefox takes between 30 seconds and 30 minutes, depending on how much stuff you choose to move over, and has nothing to do with migrating code between two platforms. It's not a fair comparison unless you're talking about developing browser extensions, and even then the API is very close to being cross-platform[0]. I don't think most people are making a principled stand against the use of…

But that's my point (which other people are making). There's a difference between Google APIs, products and software platforms. Some are riskier than not. It adds little to the conversation if someone just says "scared of abandonment" without providing more context. Yes, one's entitled to that opinion, but it's slightly misplaced sentiment. Out of interest, how long would it take for one to migrate from Go to say C o…

> Yes, one's entitled to that opinion, but it's slightly misplaced sentiment.

How do you figure? How long have you been using/developing with Google products?

Microsoft had the same reputation a few years ago. They learned the hard way what happens when you piss off developers. They are now making great strides to right those wrongs. What is Google doing to assuage those fears?

The way they have managed Android itself should give all mobile developers some consternation. It is an absolute mess with a ridiculous amount of cognitive overhead. Its a utility OS now and a really bad one at that.

My gut tells me that Android will be abandoned soon. Samsung could kill Android if it wanted to...

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#57

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 5:12 AM UTC

rohan1024 wrote: post #19

Are you frustrated with the way Android apps are developed? Tired of amount of time to get simple list working? Writing lot of boiler plate code only to update list from a dialog box? Ever got scared of implementing a navigation drawer or a fragment? Did you left Android development because the time and code to implement it was way greater than expected? Tired of handling life cycles? Sorry for being dramatic but if…

I rather use Qt and Xamarin for that purpose.

More mature, may target desktop OSes and use languages that are actually relevant in the market during the last 20 years.

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#58

Post by malkia » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

There is also an effort to bring flutter on the desktop.

I dabbled (briefly) in it, got flutter app running on windows + linux, though certain integration factors (smooth window resizing, stability, mouse wheel support, etc.) were not there yet.

For some of them (mouse wheel, keyboard, tabbing) there might be more work needed (and maybe not seen as important), but it could bring a real "electron" killer, where my slack, teams or whatever else "electron" app does not spawn 5 processes, and take GB of memory (granted, flutter still takes a lot, compared to leaner Qt, and much much leaner write directly using Win32), but then there are some sensible limits, and going below these (for the sake of perfection) doesn't buy you much nowadays (I no longer have to run QuarterDeck QEMM to shuffle my 640kb DOS+EMS memory efficiently around :))

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#59

Post by saagarjha » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 5:16 AM UTC

Is Flutter using native controls here, or are they drawing a copy of them by hand? I didn’t see a scroll bar in that demo, so I’m not sure. The rest of the stuff looked pretty good, though of course I’d need to actually physically try it to give it a final opinion rather than just rely on a GIF of someone interacting with it.

Re: Flutter Release Preview 2

#60

Post by nevi-me » Thu, Sep 20, 2018, 5:19 AM UTC

monkmartinez wrote: post #51

nevi-me wrote: post #23

EDIT: formatting Almost everyone here talks about abandonment. It's become a sad Google reality, but I'd hazard that some people are posting from Google Chrome, which would defeat the point about worrying. I use Flutter, I've released an app that's been in prod for about 5 months now. Flutter runs on Dart, which is a Google-bred language. From my little knowledge, most/some of the people working on Dart are the team…

> but I'd hazard that some people are posting from Google Chrome, which would defeat the point about worrying. Uhhh, how do you draw that conclusion? There are lots of browsers and they take literally zero time to learn. Comparing a browser to programming language or framework is apples and oranges. > Is Google going to abandon Flutter, what about Dart? Should I not learn Go because they'll also abandon it? Heck, sho…

> Uhhh, how do you draw that conclusion? There are lots of browsers and they take literally zero time to learn. Comparing a browser to programming language or framework is apples and oranges.

So, Google just released a new pineapple, but because they tend to kill the orange trees, I'd rather not bother with the pineapple. Google Chrome is a Google product. A general fear/hesitance of using Google products should apply similarly to Chrome. Otherwise you're only validating my point.

> Google has effectively abandoned it with the way they've managed the project.

Our opinions differ, which is fine. I'll leave it there.

> I wouldn't learn Go or Kotlin either, honestly, as there are arguably lots of languages that do the same with less separation anxiety.

That's fair, there's lots of languages that do a lot of things. I often learn new languages because of promises to solve some existing pain points. Separation anxiety differs from person to person, and one has to weigh costs and benefits.