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Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

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Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#81
post #73
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear the day we replace everything with JavaScript. All JavaScript apps are so unbelievably slow compared to native apps with native toolkits. At work I need to use MS Teams and holy shit it's so slow and if I'm compiling code it's barely usable on an 8 core processor. I had better performance with chat clients in 2002 on hardware that was about 1% as fast as mine today. VS Code is also very slow, you just don't no…

> VS Code is also very slow, you just don't notice it as much on today's machines. That's plain wrong. I recently upgraded my 7 years old mid range laptop and VSCode ran just fine on it, even with the required set of extensions for my projects. I upgraded because I had other issues, but VSCode wasn't one.

Considering Intel's pretty poor performance improvements over the last 10 years, your 7 y/o laptop is actually pretty fast. People are still using their 2015 MacBook Pros as their main machines.

Did you try loading a 50MB CSV (or similar) into VS Code? It just seems fast but it's actually pretty slow but hidden by the raw power.

Especially anything doing code analysis or typing hints is moving at glacial speeds compared to native or Java-based editors/IDEs. You just don't notice it because you probably either never experienced it or forgot how fast it can be. Everytime I have to use VS Code instead of Visual Studio, I slow down my typing because I need to wait for VSC to show me the hints.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#82
post #9

I wish they would expand on what's wrong with Qt or GTK. Flutter support on both Windows and Linux is pretty bad. In my opinion, electron is a better choice for cross platform desktop UI--VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish. And they're in for a lot of work if they want to customize Flutter so it doesn't look material or cupertino. Also, their big contribution to Flutter is getting it on the snap…

I fear the day we replace everything with JavaScript. All JavaScript apps are so unbelievably slow compared to native apps with native toolkits. At work I need to use MS Teams and holy shit it's so slow and if I'm compiling code it's barely usable on an 8 core processor. I had better performance with chat clients in 2002 on hardware that was about 1% as fast as mine today. VS Code is also very slow, you just don't no…

>At work I need to use MS Teams and holy shit it's so slow a

Try Slack on Firefox or Android. Who the hell has 40 seconds for a chat to load?!

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#83
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The impact could reduced if a single Electron runtime is shared across apps. Imagine the various HTML5 mobile phone environments, like Palm's webOS, but in a desktop setting.

Since electron is basically a headless browser, you would be opening up any app with an XSS vulnerability to any other app running in the runtime.

So it needs a isolation like firefox containers

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#84

I wish they would expand on what's wrong with Qt or GTK. Flutter support on both Windows and Linux is pretty bad. In my opinion, electron is a better choice for cross platform desktop UI--VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish. And they're in for a lot of work if they want to customize Flutter so it doesn't look material or cupertino. Also, their big contribution to Flutter is getting it on the snap…

>VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish.

A platform should be evaluated by what an average team can make with it, not by one shining example -- because a sufficiently talented team can make something excellent on any platform.

If the VSCode team had built something like VSCode on another platform, I'd probably like it even better than I like VSCode.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#85
This is very very sad news, but consistent with the slippery slope that Canonical is following in the recent years.

They look like to not care about users anymore, as with snaps, but behave like any other business of the silicon valley without real value.

Flutter does not even make sense with desktop apps. It is like electron mediocre apps.

What I see here is Canonical following whatever they can get from the biggest players like a hooker, to try to get attention.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#86

I guess that makes Dart a less dead language than it used to be, but from what I can tell there’s almost no momentum around Dart at all. Basing your future applications on a language which seemingly is already slipping into its coffin (even discounting the regular Google discontinuing thing), seems like a really weird choice.

I don’t know if this will continue to be true forever. Dart is actually an awesome language to work with generally and is only continuing to get better.

I think it has HUGE potential on the server side but there is a chicken and egg problem there at the moment where there don’t appear to be any actively maintained frameworks, even some basic things like ORMs and dependency injection frameworks are few and far between still.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#87
post #9

I wish they would expand on what's wrong with Qt or GTK. Flutter support on both Windows and Linux is pretty bad. In my opinion, electron is a better choice for cross platform desktop UI--VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish. And they're in for a lot of work if they want to customize Flutter so it doesn't look material or cupertino. Also, their big contribution to Flutter is getting it on the snap…

I fear the day we replace everything with JavaScript. All JavaScript apps are so unbelievably slow compared to native apps with native toolkits. At work I need to use MS Teams and holy shit it's so slow and if I'm compiling code it's barely usable on an 8 core processor. I had better performance with chat clients in 2002 on hardware that was about 1% as fast as mine today. VS Code is also very slow, you just don't no…

I honestly don't think this is a JS problem. I don't use many js apps, but I use emacs, and it's also very slow. Most of the android apps are slow. When I'm streaming something, especially on twitch, sometimes my computer can't do anything else. And I'm on a pretty good hardware (ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th Gen). Modern software is just slow, buggy and trash. Sure maybe gtk and qt are better, but they're pretty bad too. Software is just fundamentally bad because no one, even people who're paid to make software, cares about their quality.

If global warming doesn't end up killing us all, I hope we fundamentally change the way we approach to software in the next decades.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#88
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish I see this mentioned quite often here, but that's not a valid argument in favour of Electron Apps. VSCode is the primary focus for a user when it's active - so it's fine if it takes up a significant proportion of a machine's resources. Now if a bunch of background taskbar apps, calculators and notepads start doing the same, user experience is going to go downh…

The impact could reduced if a single Electron runtime is shared across apps. Imagine the various HTML5 mobile phone environments, like Palm's webOS, but in a desktop setting.

That's essentially what a Progressive Web App is.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#89
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish I see this mentioned quite often here, but that's not a valid argument in favour of Electron Apps. VSCode is the primary focus for a user when it's active - so it's fine if it takes up a significant proportion of a machine's resources. Now if a bunch of background taskbar apps, calculators and notepads start doing the same, user experience is going to go downh…

I just bought an Onivim license cause I wanted to treat myself and they're using Revery as an Electron replacement. Not sure I understand why it is faster, but I have to say the startup time is almost instantataneous and it's really responsive on a Linux 2014 i5 4Go laptop (whereas VScode ...). So it might be a good alternative.

How is Onivim? I played aroud with it v1 but wasn't impressed enough to gamble money that they'd made breakthroughs in v2

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#90
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear the day we replace everything with JavaScript. All JavaScript apps are so unbelievably slow compared to native apps with native toolkits. At work I need to use MS Teams and holy shit it's so slow and if I'm compiling code it's barely usable on an 8 core processor. I had better performance with chat clients in 2002 on hardware that was about 1% as fast as mine today. VS Code is also very slow, you just don't no…

I honestly don't think this is a JS problem. I don't use many js apps, but I use emacs, and it's also very slow. Most of the android apps are slow. When I'm streaming something, especially on twitch, sometimes my computer can't do anything else. And I'm on a pretty good hardware (ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th Gen). Modern software is just slow, buggy and trash. Sure maybe gtk and qt are better, but they're pretty bad too. S…

Too much software engineering is learned on the job, and your job is usually dictated by laymen you have no control over and who may or may not give a damn about your career. You might work at a hygenic, technical garden, you might work at an Agile SCRUM feature factory that de facto prohibits re-factoring.

But University CS programs aren't the proper place for this pedagogy either, and I don't see SWE guilds popping up for a few reasons.

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