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

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

#151

Post by pjmlp »

native_samples wrote: post #117
mrtksn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Flutter still has its quirks, but hands down, it's the best platform for the majority of "standard" apps How is the market for "standard" apps doing? One would think that by now "UI for a Database/API" should have died out already? Even if companies do need an UI for a DB or an API, that job must have had become really simple with all the frameworks and libraries. On Twitter I keep seeing people building the million…

You would think so but no, in fact, such apps have been getting more numerous yet harder to make over time rather than what you'd expect. Causes: 1. Web platform is very unproductive and hard to learn compared to what was available in the 90s. There's no widely accepted, robust and modern equivalent for Access, VB, etc. These tools were designed to be easy to learn. Smart business analysts could throw something toget…

Regarding point 1, they exist, e.g. OutSytems.

But since they aren't free beer, they are only available to those that happen to live in Fortune 500 universe.

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

#152

Post by pjmlp »

pictur wrote: post #114
wiradikusuma wrote: post #5

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…

I wish dart could replace javascript in browsers. that would be really nice

If JavaScript ever gets replaced, that will be by embracing TypeScript's gradual typing.

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

#153

Post by pjmlp »

BoorishBears wrote: post #41
wiradikusuma wrote: post #5

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…

Dart as a language is so far behind I refuse to use Flutter (and I did try it for a bit) It's like going from Kotlin to Java, or Swift to ObjC, or Typescript to Js. Tooling stinks, language features are missing, ergonomics are bad.

On the other hand, it is like using Flutter, JVM, iOS/macOS, Web browser without additional tooling, IDE plugins, FFI debugging issues or having to add layers of idiomatic libraries.

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

#154

Post by pjmlp »

samwillis wrote: post #37

I want to throw Ionic and Capacitor (or any other webview based toolkit with your favourite SPA framework) into this mix, I believe for a lot of apps its probably a better option than either Flutter or React Native. I also don't and believe in "one true cross platform toolkit", each has its place. So: Hiring - The OP suggests React Native has a larger pool of developers than Flutter, very true. But Ionic/Capacitor/et…

The few projects I was involved with Cordova and Ionic don't leave good memories regarding how slow everything was.

The only reason I got to use them was because I had no saying in what they were trying to do, just a cog on the machine.

Both applications could have been done as PWAs, but they decided to push Angular into a Webview instead, taking ages to start and react to any screen interaction.

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

#155

Post by pjmlp »

mwattsun wrote: 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…

> my take is that Microsoft looked at Java and decided they needed a Java-like language like so they made C#.

Nope, they already had their own version of Java, J++, which is where Windows Forms was initially born, alongside their extensions like what would become P/Invoke in C#.

J++ was going to be the main language for Ext-VOS, the project that would eventually be known as .NET.

Then the lawsuit happened, COOL was born and eventually rebranded as C#.

Quite easy to know how C# happened when reading HOPL papers about its history.

In this regard, Microsoft was less lucky with the lawsuit than Google with their Android Java.

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

#156

Post by mwattsun »

pjmlp wrote: post #155
mwattsun wrote: 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…

> my take is that Microsoft looked at Java and decided they needed a Java-like language like so they made C#. Nope, they already had their own version of Java, J++, which is where Windows Forms was initially born, alongside their extensions like what would become P/Invoke in C#. J++ was going to be the main language for Ext-VOS, the project that would eventually be known as .NET. Then the lawsuit happened, COOL was b…

My version is meme-able because it's short and that meme has won since I hear it oft repeated. However, I appreciate the additional detail of how Microsoft got from Java to C#

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

#157

Post by native_samples »

pjmlp wrote: post #151
native_samples wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think so but no, in fact, such apps have been getting more numerous yet harder to make over time rather than what you'd expect. Causes: 1. Web platform is very unproductive and hard to learn compared to what was available in the 90s. There's no widely accepted, robust and modern equivalent for Access, VB, etc. These tools were designed to be easy to learn. Smart business analysts could throw something toget…

Regarding point 1, they exist, e.g. OutSytems. But since they aren't free beer, they are only available to those that happen to live in Fortune 500 universe.

Yeah, there's also https://www.jmix.io/tools/ which I've looked at before and seems pretty nice. It's basically a set of libs and IntelliJ plugins on top of Spring, so you can quickly knock up a CRUD app but then extend it later with Java.

If I needed to quickly throw together a business CRUD app then I'd be tempted to buy it. At $1000/yr/developer, that's about the cost of 2 weeks of work (assuming a lowballed $90k/yr salary). Can it save two weeks per year? My guess is yes, especially if it lets you hire less experienced devs who maybe haven't written a CRUD web app before or would find it slow going / be likely to make errors. I dunno if that pricing level puts it in the Fortune 500 universe. It probably makes sense for freelancers and internal corp devs too.

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

#158

Post by jrsj »

JoeyJoJoJr wrote: post #145
jrsj wrote: post #36

I’ve never worked with anything that made me want to quit software entirely more than React Native, and didn’t feel that way at all about Flutter. Maybe it’s just me but I feel like the developer experience of Flutter is much more consistent.

I worked on a React Native reject in 2019, and decided to exit mobile dev and focus just on web. My frustration at the time was the bonkers reliance on two package managers (npm and cocoa pods) and having many, many problems that had to be resolved in some quirky way in XCode or Android studio. I didn’t like how much native code had to be copied and pasted around to integrate SDKs. At that stage you may as well bite…

I had a very similar experience. It seems like they’ve just stacked too many different complex pieces of software on top of each other & the result is sometimes unpredictable and difficult to debug behavior that can pop up in any layer of that stack.
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