51–60 of 80 posts
Since when was Flutter the "go-to solution for cross-platform development"? Maybe for hobbyists but in the corporate space it's still React Native. The problem with Flutter, and this extends even further with KMP is that the scope of your skills is limited to making mobile apps whereas with React Native you are learning and using skills that can apply to a complete stack. KMP is even worse in this regard as they expe…
Unlike RN, Flutter is desktop worthy.
One datapoint is that Google rewrote their Google Docs app in KMM (which doesn't include UI, that's Compose Multiplatform), replacing their legacy in-house framework. They intend to write more of their apps in it. They also recently offshored some Flutter roles which may be a sign of how central they view Flutter. In a few years it may be in the graveyard. https://touchlab.co/KMP-at-google https://www.reddit.com/r/Fl…
Can you point me to the source? I'm curious
One datapoint is that Google rewrote their Google Docs app in KMM (which doesn't include UI, that's Compose Multiplatform), replacing their legacy in-house framework. They intend to write more of their apps in it. They also recently offshored some Flutter roles which may be a sign of how central they view Flutter. In a few years it may be in the graveyard. https://touchlab.co/KMP-at-google https://www.reddit.com/r/Fl…
The roles that were moved were devops stuff, nothing to do with core flutter, and they did this to many groups.
Still, in a couple of years when Compose Multiplatform is mature, and Google is looking to boost profit margin, they may rationalise their investment in multiple Cross Platform toolkits. I think most agree that, from a technical viewpoint, KMP + Compose Multiplatform offers the most flexibility.
One datapoint is that Google rewrote their Google Docs app in KMM (which doesn't include UI, that's Compose Multiplatform), replacing their legacy in-house framework. They intend to write more of their apps in it. They also recently offshored some Flutter roles which may be a sign of how central they view Flutter. In a few years it may be in the graveyard. https://touchlab.co/KMP-at-google https://www.reddit.com/r/Fl…
> One datapoint is that Google rewrote their Google Docs app in KMM (which doesn't include UI, that's Compose Multiplatform) Can you point me to the source? I'm curious
For the name of the internal framework, I can't remember which podcast I heard it on, but they haven't mentioned it publicly much if at all. It's something they threw together in like 2012.
It also seems relatively difficult to find developers compared to React Native, which otherwise seems to share those maintenance requirements.
Flutter was never welcomed by Android team, so this wouldn't surprise me. The go-to solution for cross-platform mobile development are mobile Web apps, unless we are speaking about games, or very special snowflake apps that really need device APIs. Forms over data can be easily done as mobile Web.
Maybe I'm getting cynical but in terms of longevity, I don't know how long JetBrains will be around and I'm not trusting Google to maintain a project for a long time. Can't believe I'm saying this but for perennial projects in that sphere, Java seems like the better option :/
JetBrains exists since 2000 and is privately owned. Not VC funded. Looks as solid as it gets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, Flutter performance absolutely _sucks_ on older hardware, which they obviously aren't testing on.
On newer hardware too.
Since when was Flutter the "go-to solution for cross-platform development"? Maybe for hobbyists but in the corporate space it's still React Native. The problem with Flutter, and this extends even further with KMP is that the scope of your skills is limited to making mobile apps whereas with React Native you are learning and using skills that can apply to a complete stack. KMP is even worse in this regard as they expe…
All you have to do is google Flutter vs React Native The trend for Flutter is a straight line going up and React Native is going down in popularity. The trend was obvious many years ago, and just recently Flutter is now surpassing RN in nearly every poll.
The simple answer is that when people have a problem or question about Flutter they simply key in Flutter. With RN they can ask about React, JavaScript, typescript, RN itself or one of the many components you use to make an app as it's the sum of a lot more parts.
So if Flutter didn't get more searches here I would be surprised and concerned.
The longer answer I'll just tease but suffice to say it's more complex than above.
It can come down to lots of things including the competency/experience of developers and maturity. As an experienced developer I might need to search for or ask about what I'm doing maybe 2 times a week. For someone getting started that might be that many times an hour. If you just looked at the two of us as a blob it might seem that whatever the other is using is more popular despite it being 50/50.
So yeah, number of searches or stack overflow questions or Reddit posts or whatever it is does not equal popularity.
Kotlin has Java interoperability as well as wider community support which to me seems a lot more organic than Flutter's. And, personally, I dislike Flutter's obtuse OOP patterns. From what little I used Kotlin it seemed like more modern Java that didn't make your fingers sore with its boilerplate. Although Gradle is still the worst package manager I have ever used.