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Flutter desktop shells

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Re: Flutter desktop shells

#161

Post by edwinyzh »

weberc2 wrote: post #124
yc-kraln wrote: 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.

Context: I was a Qt developer in a past life. The alternatives for cross-platform GUI are 1. Electron 2. Frameworks like C++/Qt C/Gtk 3. Bindings to (2) Using frameworks like Qt in native C++ sucks because C and C++ are just terrible languages for GUI development, even with the bolted on object systems and language extensions (Qt extends the C++ language). Using bindings to those frameworks is nice in theory because…

FreePascal with Lazarus, the true cross-platform GUI framework is similar to Delphi's VCL or .Net's WinForms, it's been in active development for over a decade, and you compile your program into native machine code to a lot of platforms.

https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#162

Post by jasonhansel »

weberc2 wrote: post #124
yc-kraln wrote: 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.

Context: I was a Qt developer in a past life. The alternatives for cross-platform GUI are 1. Electron 2. Frameworks like C++/Qt C/Gtk 3. Bindings to (2) Using frameworks like Qt in native C++ sucks because C and C++ are just terrible languages for GUI development, even with the bolted on object systems and language extensions (Qt extends the C++ language). Using bindings to those frameworks is nice in theory because…

I really wish XUL had found uses beyond Mozilla -- IIRC it solved most of these issues.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#163

Post by mraleph »

GordonS wrote: post #151

Is it possible to work with Flutter using Typescript, or is it Dart only? It really feels like Typescript won the war to be something of a JS replacement a long time ago - I like the look of Flutter, but I really don't want to learn another language that I won't use for anything else. BTW, I realise Dart is likely similar to Typescript in many respects, and I wouldn't expect a big learning curve - but I already have…

> Is it possible to work with Flutter using Typescript, or is it Dart only?

You might be thinking that Flutter underneath is using JavaScript - to which Dart compiles. However this is not how Flutter works, there is no JavaScript involved anywhere in the stack.

Dart is its own language - and it can run natively, unlike TypeScript - which is just a type system over JavaScript and needs to be compiled to JavaScript to actually run.

So no, you can't use TypeScript with Flutter.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#164

Post by JTenerife »

weberc2 wrote: post #124
yc-kraln wrote: 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.

Context: I was a Qt developer in a past life. The alternatives for cross-platform GUI are 1. Electron 2. Frameworks like C++/Qt C/Gtk 3. Bindings to (2) Using frameworks like Qt in native C++ sucks because C and C++ are just terrible languages for GUI development, even with the bolted on object systems and language extensions (Qt extends the C++ language). Using bindings to those frameworks is nice in theory because…

I've used PyQt some years ago and loved it. I can't remember any bigger issues at all. Super productive and fun.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#166

Post by edwinyzh »

nradov wrote: post #98
yc-kraln wrote: 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.

In general it's just really disappointing that in 2019 the development frameworks we have available are still objectively worse in terms of developer productivity, reliability, and documentation than what we had with Microsoft Visual Basic or Borland Delphi back in 1996. I totally understand that these modern frameworks are superior when it comes to cross-platform compatibility and easy application distribution, but…

Check the Lazarus IDE (https://www.lazarus-ide.org/), it's very similar to Delphi with an integrated code editor, visual GUI designer and debugger - you can debug on the target platform including Linux, Windows, Mac, Raspberry Pi, and so on.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#167

Post by kitsunesoba »

danite wrote: post #61
yc-kraln wrote: 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.

To me Dart is pretty disappointing. Modern languages like Swift and Rust have shown the power of incorporating functional features like sum types and pattern matching. Dart just feels like the same sort of OO language we've been getting since Java became popular. Edit: Also the continued existence of null in new programming languages is a baffling choice to me.

Indeed, Flutter would be much more compelling if I could use it with Rust or Swift instead. Dart really doesn’t interest me.

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#168

Post by edwinyzh »

est31 wrote: post #23
yc-kraln wrote: 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.

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.

No mention of Lazarus?

Check the IDE: (https://www.lazarus-ide.org/) and the cross-platform apps built with it: http://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Application_Gallery

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#169

Post by alasano »

csells wrote: post #153
wellpast wrote: post #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). Ho…

I'm the PM for the Flutter developer experience. I'm currently digging into the next steps for our desktop experiment with Flutter and I'm very interested to hear how your xplat desktop app dev options fall short. What do you need from an xplay desktop app dev framework and toolchain? Chris Sells csells@google.com

Unrelated question, when did you decide not to pursue a career in sales?

Re: Flutter desktop shells

#170

Post by asutekku »

ngrilly wrote: post #87
asutekku wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has abandoned so many projects people (developers) don’t have that much of a faith in them anymore.

A lot of open sources are abandoned in general. Google has a good track record regarding the maintenance of their open source projects. Google has abandoned some proprietary products (Google Reader, Google +, etc.), but it says nothing about their open source strategy.

For a public view it doesn’t really matter if it is proprietary project or not. They have tarnished their own reputation even at the development field with their actions.
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