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Flutter desktop shells

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71–80 of 322 posts

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#71
post #60

They are still using OpenGL on Mac. Apple has deprecated OpenGL. I'd definitely wait until the Flutter team has replaced the OpenGL dependency with Apple's Metal. (I really hope they will do it.)

Does Apple not support Vulkan?

Unfortunately, no. They use the proprietary Metal API, but there are some middleware that convert Metal to Vulkan, I think sponsored by Valve.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#72
post #60

They are still using OpenGL on Mac. Apple has deprecated OpenGL. I'd definitely wait until the Flutter team has replaced the OpenGL dependency with Apple's Metal. (I really hope they will do it.)

Does Apple not support Vulkan?

No, they only support Metal, but there is MoltenVK: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried dart back in the Angular 2 beta days with Angular Dart and after using it I have the exact opposite feeling about it. It's a thing that solved a lot of very real problems that are still halfassed by NPM and Node ecosystem - package manager, build system, tooling around it - it was all a step above the quality of TypeScript/NPM/JS. Saner object semantics, good standard library, good tooling - it just got me…

Ok, but to parent’s point... is it going to last? Is it yet another thing Google will abandon? Is it worth learning, because learning another language has a real cost imo. If Google walks at any point, does Flutter or Dart survive? I’m with him, I want to like the idea, but I think the adoption has been slow and it doesn’t appear like it’s going to suddenly take off. I could be wrong, I just don’t see any successful…

I think it got enough adoption so far that it's not going away overnight and should be usable since people already published apps with it.

From my point of view learning Dart/Flutter isn't really a big investment so the downside of it getting abandoned soon is not as large as the payoff if it actually delivers - quality cross platform UI framework with great dev experience that I can use on my projects.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#74
Every so often for the past several years I'll go evaluate options for cross-platform desktop app development and I always come back with an enormous handful of options and all of which fall short on some measure.

I would really think that this "problem" would have a great solution by now. But I think most of the developer attention is on web for obvious reasons (more ease, more conducive to mistakes/novices/etc).

However I think there should be way more desktop apps. I hate using services and having my data all on some remote service w/ little options for privacy and safety/backup, etc. I also like the general speed of desktop apps (though I know the web is trying to pull on more desktop/os resources) and I like the way desktop apps can interact with the host OS (creative windowing/sidebar/docking/etc and utilization of system tray/menu bar/etc.)

I would much rather see my needs addressed by suites of standalone/private desktop apps than by a bunch of URLs and Saas's.

Interestingly, the HN zeitgeist seems to recently be turning its awares back to this topic (it seesm to me from recent HN threads). Is it? And if so, I wonder why? What's in the air now?

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#75
post #3

I really want to like Flutter, but I someone really don't want to spend the time to learn Dart. I can't really quantify it--some mix of yet-another Proprietary Google Technology, yet another ecosystem, yet another X. I'm tired I just want to build stuff that solves problems.

I've tried dart back in the Angular 2 beta days with Angular Dart and after using it I have the exact opposite feeling about it. It's a thing that solved a lot of very real problems that are still halfassed by NPM and Node ecosystem - package manager, build system, tooling around it - it was all a step above the quality of TypeScript/NPM/JS. Saner object semantics, good standard library, good tooling - it just got me…

I concur. I've never tried it with Angular, but I have written it for Flutter, and after a couple decades with JavaScript, I much prefer Dart (and it took no time to learn and I simply Google for the API as much or less than any other new language I learn these days). It was easy to start building a Flutter app with it immediately--not much of a learning curve to speak of. Whether or not I know it super well is beside the point--after a short time with it, I can use it productively and found it alongside the Flutter classes to be easier to get going with than Swift, Objective-C, Cordova, and even Rubymotion (Rubymotion is also pretty quick and friendly compared to the other options, but Dart/Flutter is a bit faster if you're a native mobile noob mainly because with Rubymotion you need to dig into the Apple APIs a bit, but with Flutter it's more abstracted).

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#76
I'm going to wait a few years for this to settle down in case Google drops it like other projects, its web-component polymer project which I spent some cycles on did not take off, Angular is not in good shape these days either, and the PWA... Flutter might be just another new try.

For me, React, ReactNative, Electron, even Vue, is enough for now, I can not trust Google on yet another web effort anymore, life is too short to trust a giant who behaves unpredictably sometimes.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#77
Shameless self-promotion: There's also https://hover.build, which builds a Go binary that runs the flutter engine to run your app. Can be used to easily deploy a Flutter app on desktop, and allows for cross platform plugins written in Go. It works, but is in early release. It is based on https://github.com/go-flutter-desktop/go-flutter

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#78

Every so often for the past several years I'll go evaluate options for cross-platform desktop app development and I always come back with an enormous handful of options and all of which fall short on some measure. I would really think that this "problem" would have a great solution by now. But I think most of the developer attention is on web for obvious reasons (more ease, more conducive to mistakes/novices/etc). Ho…

Have you tried Rubymotion? It currently deploys to iOS, Android and OSX, but Amir, the new leader, is quite passionate about expanding and just deployed a popular Rubymotion app on the Nintendo Switch, so stay tuned for more platforms!

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but to parent’s point... is it going to last? Is it yet another thing Google will abandon? Is it worth learning, because learning another language has a real cost imo. If Google walks at any point, does Flutter or Dart survive? I’m with him, I want to like the idea, but I think the adoption has been slow and it doesn’t appear like it’s going to suddenly take off. I could be wrong, I just don’t see any successful…

> is it going to last? Is it yet another thing Google will abandon? It's apparently the primary language for Google Ads. As such, I expect it to be maintained as long as Google continues to sell ads and if they do move away from it you'll have plenty of warning.

People keep saying that in Flutter threads, but it appears to be a small app for managing your ads? If it's just this, it wouldn't be hard to replace:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-ads/id1037457231?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Via https://flutter.dev/showcase

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#80
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's your alternative? Java Swing? Proprietary Sun (now Oracle) technology. Qt? Proprietary Trolltech tech. Electron? You're back on square one of using Google technology. And winforms, WPF, application kit, etc are all far more proprietary than Flutter.

Kotlin native/multiplatform projects is the answer

It's _very_ early, though, as well.

There's not much of an ecosystem for multiplatform yet for desktop projects at all. For macOS you have a way of "making a framework you can use" and that's about it.

There is a lot of promise, though, in the mobile space: https://touchlab.co/touchlab-square-kotlin-multiplatform-col...

My sense is that as the mobile multiplatform space gets ironed out, the desktop space will benefit.

Though generally speaking, Kotlin/Native has a _much_ lower level of "institutional" risk, since the Kotlin approach doesn't subvert the control Apple or Microsoft have over their platforms. Flutter, on the other hand, seems to abstract it away.

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