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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

#161

Post by dfischer »

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.

I'd add that the connotation of an angulardart app isn't a simple SPA. It's meant for larger applications. I have been using it for the past year and a half and really enjoy it. The compiling times have been improving with each release.

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

#162

Post by bradhoffman »

PhilippGille wrote: post #31
bradhoffman wrote: post #3

I’ve given Flutter a try with one of my client’s apps, and in some cases, it’s obviously better than native development. Mainly because you can develop for both platforms. I’d be curious to hear where other developers think Flutter is a good framework to use instead of developing native code.

> and in some cases, it’s obviously better than native development. Mainly because you can develop for both platforms Have you tried Xamarin?

I have not. I didn’t want to put the time into learning the .NET stack and C# because I am from a .NET town and did not want to get stuck here. What're your thoughts on it?

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

#163

Post by fwip »

baybal2 wrote: post #116
wstrange wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, not new. They take features of regular toolkits like gtk and qt, claiming them as new, paradigm shifting, bigger than sliced bread things. Except it is still a very early stage product and feature set of one tenth of what QT or GTK would have provided.

Unlike GTK and QT, Flutter targets mobile and web.

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

#164

Post by leeoniya »

Aeolun wrote: post #156
leeoniya wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, but it’s more or less in line with current single page apps. In fact, quite possibly a bit smaller.

not sure how many "Hello, World" SPAs would add up to that.

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

#165

Post by ausjke »

gjmacd wrote: post #33

We need to learn yet another language (Dart)? No thanks.

Flutter looks great, except for the fact that is yet-another-language, why???

otherwise I might put some time into it, the Dart decision is unwise to me. Life is too short to get good of so many languages(esp the eco-systems behind each)

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

#166

Post by zaroth »

cornstalks wrote: post #132
Hixie wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm the Flutter TL.) According to today's benchmark numbers, we're at 4414KB on Android and 8572KB on iOS (IIRC, iOS encrypts before compressing so it can't get as good a compression). This is for our Hello World test app ( https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/examples/hell... ), which is more or less the smallest app you can imagine building with Flutter unless you bypass the entire framework and only use…

Fellow Googler here. I think it’s best to report those numbers with the appropriate SI prefix: 4.414 MB and 8.572 MB. Reporting numbers as “X thousand kilobytes” makes it harder to grok the real scale.

Pardon me making a joke at your expense cornstalks, but...

Is this what a culture that AB tests 34 shades of blue looks like?

I think we can handle the conversion here in the HN comment section!

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

#167

Post by tspike »

pcr0 wrote: post #150
westoque wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think Ruby/Rails is a good example of this. They maximize on developer happiness but that doesn’t stop users from using a bloated rails app. Take a look at GitHub/GitLab as an example of a Rails app I guess?

I don't see how end users suffer from using Rails. Server side rerponse time is a very small component of page load time for most websites. It's different from being forced to download and parse megabytes of JS, which consumes CPU, battery and time.

Not to mention your data plan

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

#168

Post by vturner »

westoque wrote: post #104
saagarjha wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s funny now that there’s fiber having 1GB/s internet speeds, we rant about 1MB size package. Half the people in the world probably struggle to have access to a 10 Mb/s connection. Even I go to places with connections that are tenuous at best.

I think there’s a middleground there that if you want to support these countries then there should be a framework for this (Flutter Lite?).. But if you want the complete feature set that is “bloated” but has good ux/ui support then that should be fine as well.

"these countries"? I've seen schools in the US with 15 mb/s My mothers, Xfinity, has a low tier, 25mb/s.

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

#169

Post by skybrian »

mkozlows wrote: post #70
Hixie wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm the Flutter TL.) We support targeting the Web (that's the tech preview we released today), and we support targeting Android, both of which ChromeOS support. We also support development on ChromeOS.

So there's not, as of now, a "native" (not using the Android emulation) Flutter API in ChromeOS?

ChromeOS apps are (were?) written in JavaScript, using similar API's as Chrome extensions, and can be installed via the Chrome Web Store. So at one time at least, you could write them in Dart and compile to JavaScript. I remember there being Dart wrappers around some of these JavaScript API's. Not sure how smooth the path is anymore or if that's what you meant by native.

The modern way would be to write a single page app using standard web API's, if those are enough to accomplish what you want, since it's portable to other browsers that way.

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

#170

Post by Swalden123 »

vturner wrote: post #168
westoque wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s a middleground there that if you want to support these countries then there should be a framework for this (Flutter Lite?).. But if you want the complete feature set that is “bloated” but has good ux/ui support then that should be fine as well.

"these countries"? I've seen schools in the US with 15 mb/s My mothers, Xfinity, has a low tier, 25mb/s.

A lot of Australia is still stuck on ADSL with speeds of 5 - 20Mb if your lucky
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