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Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

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Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#71

Post by cmroanirgo »

Hixie wrote: post #53
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On iOS it's obvious it uses emulated controls. I think if you want a fully themed app that looks the same across all environments, you should go with Flutter. If you want an app that looks the same as other native apps on the target environment, you should go with React Native.

(I'm the Flutter TL) If you can tell that we're not using OEM widgets, we consider that a bug. Please file it and explain what the difference is. We're definitely not perfect, but fidelity is a high priority for us this year. https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/new?template=BUG.m...

Personally, I'd prefer actual native if that was my aim, as opposed to something that looks exactly like it, but actually has layers of styling beneath it in order to look the same. Why? Because if I want the native look, I'm more inclined to be sensitive to my app's size and performance.

That said, I do understand that many people want the seeming of a native app, even if there's a bit of a blowout in size and performance... it's just not my cup of tea however.

Here's a (random) post talking of performance of Native vs Flutter vs RN: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/examining-performance-difference...

>I feel confident in saying that a native Android app will perform better than either a React Native app or a Flutter app

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#72

Post by andrewstuart »

stefan_ wrote: post #55
andrewstuart wrote: post #7

I wonder if the Flutter engine would work on a Linux system that has only 128MB or 256MB? I've been playing around with devices like this https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/WiFi-Display-Dongle-1080P-Wirele... and it would be fun to run Flutter engine on them. edit - would also be fun on the 4GB RAM rk3399 http://rockchip.wikidot.com/rk3399 tv box: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/X99-TV-BOX-4K-UHD-RK3399-4GB-32G... open source L…

That Rockchip has an ancient Mali 400 GPU (with no open source drivers) that won't be able to render a Flutter app at 1080p, or lower even. The engine library alone is also already ~70 MiB. Running the Flutter Demo on my RPi3 (in aarch64, so the numbers are somewhat inflated) it's at 250 MiB of memory (with about 60 MiB of that for the system) and an additional 60 MiB of graphics memory. This is on a 1366x768, where…

So it does not sound encouraging for Flutter on $20 HDMI sticks.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#73

Post by markdog12 »

mraleph wrote: post #5
mikece wrote: post #2

Dart could very well end up being the secret weapon behind Flutter. Not only does Dart compile to JavaScript -- it's done this from day 1 -- but it also compiles to ARM binary via LLVM for iOS applications... meaning that compiling to WASM should be a trivial option to enable bringing near-native computational speeds to any targeted platform.

> but it also compiles to ARM binary via LLVM for iOS applications [disclaimer: I am TL for Dart Native Compilers] We currently don't use LLVM for compiling Dart to native and we actually never used it in production - though we previously built couple of prototypes to evaluate potential benefits of using LLVM. We use our own AOT compilation toolchain which has roots in our JIT compiler for Dart. > meaning that compil…

I noticed Chrome Canary added a WebAssembly GC flag last week or so. SIMD too. I think FF had the GC flag for a while now.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#75

Post by owaislone »

eitland wrote: post #22
wstrange wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flutter apps can now target the chrome browser (preview at this point). So a chromebook can run Flutter apps via the browser OR via an Android Flutter app.

Are you saying this isn't a web framework but rather a Chrome framework??

It's a mobile, web, desktop (including Chrome OS) and embedded framework.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#76

Post by wstrange »

yesimahuman wrote: post #40

Flutter for Web is heavily reminiscent of Famous with its custom layout system and off-DOM rendering (or guessing DOM rendering support w/ CSS transforms of divs). To see, just view-source on the NYT demo. Quite divergent from the web platform in my opinion. The fact that they have to re-implement copy and paste (and, accessibility features!) further adds to that: https://medium.com/flutter-io/bringing-flutter-to-the…

Web development with DOM, CSS, etc. is a morass of complexity.

I'm really excited about a fresh approach to UI development. If they can pull it off, it is going to be very compelling.

It is going to take an enormous amount of investment. Something like this could only be done by a "FAANG" size company.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#77

Post by ergothus »

No one has (yet) mentioned the main reason I ignored Flutter when it initially came out and why I continue to have reluctance - It's google. They have a terrible track record with products AND with libraries. GWT? Dart (pre flutter)? NaCl? How about all those initial Angular devs?

That's not a statement on the quality of the result (though some of those examples do indicate concerns), but if I'm not alone in avoiding a product that tackles a real industry need because of the source, that's a bad sign.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#78

Post by leeoniya »

michaelchisari wrote: post #30
zackbrown wrote: post #26

Has Flutter solved its footprint-bloat problem? The internet is littered with reports of 10-100MB+ .ipa and .apk binaries coming out of simple Flutter apps for iOS + Android. Google states they can't imagine the footprint ever dropping as low as 1MB. [1] On Web, 1MB of base runtime is a complete showstopper. Embedded applications may suffer similarly. Does today's announcement mean Google has figured out how to fix t…

I tested it, and the "Hello, World" example results in a 560k js package. Uglified and minified takes it down to around 480k. Gzip takes that to 140k and Brotli compression to 100k. That's a lot to bootstrap an app with, but it's not unreasonable, considering what most frameworks these days will start you with.

it's not just what goes over the wire. that's 560k of JS that has to be parsed and compiled, which is a shitload.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#79

Post by stefan_ »

andrewstuart wrote: post #72
stefan_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Rockchip has an ancient Mali 400 GPU (with no open source drivers) that won't be able to render a Flutter app at 1080p, or lower even. The engine library alone is also already ~70 MiB. Running the Flutter Demo on my RPi3 (in aarch64, so the numbers are somewhat inflated) it's at 250 MiB of memory (with about 60 MiB of that for the system) and an additional 60 MiB of graphics memory. This is on a 1366x768, where…

So it does not sound encouraging for Flutter on $20 HDMI sticks.

We have $80 retail smartphones that blow this chip out of the water, so I have no doubts you can make a very good performing $20 Flutter stick. It's just that currently, it takes about 10 years for any sort of mobile throwaway hardware to get some sort of open source support that would make this possible for the home tinkerer.

Re: Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop

#80

Post by andrewstuart »

stefan_ wrote: post #79
andrewstuart wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it does not sound encouraging for Flutter on $20 HDMI sticks.

We have $80 retail smartphones that blow this chip out of the water, so I have no doubts you can make a very good performing $20 Flutter stick. It's just that currently, it takes about 10 years for any sort of mobile throwaway hardware to get some sort of open source support that would make this possible for the home tinkerer.

Rockchip - the maker of the rk3036 CPU are pretty good with their open source: https://github.com/rockchip-linux

>>We have $80 retail smartphones that blow this chip out of the water

I'm interested in things that plug in to HDMI.

This for example is $150 https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/X99-TV-BOX-4K-UHD-RK3399-4GB-32G... and uses the newer rk3399 chip http://rockchip.wikidot.com/rk3399

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