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Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

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21–30 of 158 posts

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#21
post #11
post #6

In 2019, I joined a project with other 2 partners to develop an app for audiobooks. The CTO said the app should be done using Flutter and he sold it like it was paradise on earth. I disagreed but couldn't push that much to try to convince the rest of the guys about this detail. On month 8 on the project, the CTO resigns and leave, leaving us 8 months ahead of no major development because it was impossible to find Flu…

> because it was impossible to find Flutter people and, most importantly, people who were proficient on that platform If you can't find them, you gotta train them

Any idea how long it should take? I don't do frontend, but when I tried making GUIs back in the Tk heydays, it was feasible to cook up a very functional GUI in the first day of learning/usage.

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#23
Flutter is far more enjoyable for me, but in terms of actually publishing a production ready app, React Native all the way.

At work you have deadlines, you don't have time to re-implement solutions that have been solved with React Native for years.

Still, for my hobbyist projects, I absolutely love Flutter

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#24
This article highlights one of the things that really bugs me about tech hiring. The availability of developers who know a language or tech isn't a limiting factor if you're willing to hire people and give them the time to learn. Yes, it's expensive, but if there really are productivity benefits from using a particular tool then you should end up better off in the long term anyway.

The expectation that another company will train your workforce, or that they'll train themselves in their spare time before joining, massively inhibits the proliferation of different, new, and interesting technologies and keeps 90% of the devs in the web and mobile world on the same 3 platforms (JS/TS, Swift, and Kotlin).

Unless companies start hiring to mentor people this will not change, and probably TS will just eat all the others in the long run.

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#25
I really enjoy the dev experience of Flutter. The tooling is great and Dart was easy to pick up with my experience with C#. The various batteries-included features are appreciated as well.

Unfortunately, the lack of "Code Push" killed several attempts of using Flutter on various projects for us.

ReactNative has been good to us but I really wish there was a bit more built-in for commonly needed features.

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#26
post #7

I've programmed a lot in both Dart and C# and my take is that Microsoft looked at Java and decided they needed a Java-like language like so they made C#. Google was into Java but Oracle sued them over it so they decided they needed a Java-like language so made Dart. Edit: Dart is ridiculously easy to learn because it's very familiar so if someone complains about having to learn Dart it means they don't want to learn…

If that's the strategy behind dart, it would be the de-facto android language and they'd have a JVM target.

It's hard to place dart in a modern languages context, it really only made sense as a "next javascript" bet in 2011 -- pre-ES6.

It feels legacy now, maybe flutter will be a rivial -- seems unlikely though.

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#27
post #7

I've programmed a lot in both Dart and C# and my take is that Microsoft looked at Java and decided they needed a Java-like language like so they made C#. Google was into Java but Oracle sued them over it so they decided they needed a Java-like language so made Dart. Edit: Dart is ridiculously easy to learn because it's very familiar so if someone complains about having to learn Dart it means they don't want to learn…

I've messed around with a few simple Flutter applications and I wrote in Java until the IDE complained then made minor fixes. I never had the feeling I was learning a new language honestly, felt more like moving from python 2 to python 3 than a whole different language

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#28
post #21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it was impossible to find Flutter people and, most importantly, people who were proficient on that platform If you can't find them, you gotta train them

Any idea how long it should take? I don't do frontend, but when I tried making GUIs back in the Tk heydays, it was feasible to cook up a very functional GUI in the first day of learning/usage.

6 months for learning and becoming proficient in a new framework/language

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#29
post #14
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it was impossible to find Flutter people and, most importantly, people who were proficient on that platform If you can't find them, you gotta train them

We did that with one guy after month 3, the guy accepted and started Flutter course, etc. He quit the job on month 5 arguing he disliked Flutter and Dart.

sample size of 1. It may not have been for that individual but that doesnt mean hiring and training on the job is incorrect

Re: Flutter is better than React Native in all the ways that don’t matter

#30

I think Flutter is better _because_ it uses Dart. I used to hate that decision ("Not another language to learn.."), but Flutter and Dart are like Mac and macOS (I'm aware people complaining about macOS quality going down the hill.. but that's another story). They're both from the same company, seemingly built for each other, and the language (Dart) improvements are _relevant_ for the platform (Flutter). Flutter still…

As someone who started programming using GCC, Vi and commandline tools, I just hate the tooling around Flutter.

And yes, someone will probably point out that I can use Flutter with commandline tools after I disable all the bloatware that needs to be installed anyway, but that's missing the point.

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