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SwiftUI After 7 Years

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Re: SwiftUI After 7 Years

#11

Post by preg_match »

rubymamis wrote: post #4
formvoltron wrote: post #2

Is the right way to develop mobile apps flutter? or Kotlin multiplatform plus native UIs?

I know people would dismiss this, but I'm going to try to make the case for Qt - I'm currently converting my note-taking app to mobile and it's going very well.

Yes, Qt is mature and high-quality software. If you’re doing OSS, then Qt is truly a no brainer. The amount of C++ you have to write is truly minimal, and it’s not “raw” C++. There’s a lot of tooling and libraries. You can target web now too, and QML is legitimately good.

If KDE can develop a high performance stable desktop, you can design whatever.

Re: SwiftUI After 7 Years

#12

Post by cosmic_cheese »

I'm sure many will disagree, but I have doubts that pure declarative-reactive is the "right" shape for an all-purpose native UI framework. In my experience, Kotlin+Compose shares many of the same warts… its main redeeming quality is that it's better than Android Framework (most of the time), which is low bar to clear.

These frameworks have a number of good ideas but they don't necessarily combine in a way that transcends high quality traditional imperative frameworks with declarative-reactive bits sprinkled throughout, at least for more complex apps. SwiftUI and its ilk work best for super simple tabs-and-flat-lists sorts of apps.

Re: SwiftUI After 7 Years

#13

Post by lowbloodsugar »

livinglist wrote: post #7
formvoltron wrote: post #2

Is the right way to develop mobile apps flutter? or Kotlin multiplatform plus native UIs?

Define right, it’s hard to replicate the native UI especially Liquid Glass on iOS because it’s rendering everything using its own rendering engine, making it hard to feel right on iOS. I have also seen a lot of companies move away from flutter to either native or React Native.

Well we all love Liquid Glass. Most loved UX update in iPhone and macOS history. Massive dealbreaker for an app not to look like Liquid Glass. I definitely choose apps based on whether they look like proper Liquid Glass applications instead of the developer taking shortcuts and focusing on working features instead.

Re: SwiftUI After 7 Years

#14

Post by rumori »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #12

I'm sure many will disagree, but I have doubts that pure declarative-reactive is the "right" shape for an all-purpose native UI framework. In my experience, Kotlin+Compose shares many of the same warts… its main redeeming quality is that it's better than Android Framework (most of the time), which is low bar to clear. These frameworks have a number of good ideas but they don't necessarily combine in a way that transc…

I think open source is the right move here. The great thing about Flutter is you get the declarative UI to build a lot of standard screens easily but you can always drop down to lower levels, inspect the standard components, mix and match with your custom implementation. You can mix UKit and SwiftUI but there’s way more friction due to the closed nature of the SDK.

Re: SwiftUI After 7 Years

#16

Post by skydhash »

rayiner wrote: post #3

The problem with complex systems is that you can be dead long before you realize you're dead. Things can continue to seem "pretty good" for a long time just from the inertia of past good decisions and built-up infrastructure. You see some fraying or cracks but everything looks fundamentally sound, until it isn't. Apple's inability to deploy a new UI framework that's better than the previous one is troubling. This is…

I think the main issue is the functional approach. Having a functional approach to state can be quite elegant, but ultimately the computer does not do functional. You have to implement a lot of plumbing to have stuff that is a bit performance (clojure), or just add a veneer of functional over what is essentially a normal state machine (emacs).

React works well, because it's only an abstraction over the real DOM. React only handles your app state. But the DOM mechanism is still very performant and very much imperative. But I don't think something like React would work well in a mobile app, because the UI tree is often very simple on iOS and macOS.

Re: SwiftUI After 7 Years

#17

Post by lelandfe »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #13
livinglist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define right, it’s hard to replicate the native UI especially Liquid Glass on iOS because it’s rendering everything using its own rendering engine, making it hard to feel right on iOS. I have also seen a lot of companies move away from flutter to either native or React Native.

Well we all love Liquid Glass. Most loved UX update in iPhone and macOS history. Massive dealbreaker for an app not to look like Liquid Glass. I definitely choose apps based on whether they look like proper Liquid Glass applications instead of the developer taking shortcuts and focusing on working features instead.

You jest but yes, even as I do not love this new update, an application bucking Apple platform standards personally sours me pretty hard on it.

Re: SwiftUI After 7 Years

#19

Post by livinglist »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #13
livinglist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define right, it’s hard to replicate the native UI especially Liquid Glass on iOS because it’s rendering everything using its own rendering engine, making it hard to feel right on iOS. I have also seen a lot of companies move away from flutter to either native or React Native.

Well we all love Liquid Glass. Most loved UX update in iPhone and macOS history. Massive dealbreaker for an app not to look like Liquid Glass. I definitely choose apps based on whether they look like proper Liquid Glass applications instead of the developer taking shortcuts and focusing on working features instead.

Well I’m a heavy Flutter user myself, and the app I built Hacki often gets reviews saying it doesn’t feel native on iOS. I personally don’t have anything against it and I think Flutter has the BEST developer experience compared to other mobile app dev toolkit/SDKs.

Re: SwiftUI After 7 Years

#20

Post by poly2it »

skydhash wrote: post #16
rayiner wrote: post #3

The problem with complex systems is that you can be dead long before you realize you're dead. Things can continue to seem "pretty good" for a long time just from the inertia of past good decisions and built-up infrastructure. You see some fraying or cracks but everything looks fundamentally sound, until it isn't. Apple's inability to deploy a new UI framework that's better than the previous one is troubling. This is…

I think the main issue is the functional approach. Having a functional approach to state can be quite elegant, but ultimately the computer does not do functional. You have to implement a lot of plumbing to have stuff that is a bit performance (clojure), or just add a veneer of functional over what is essentially a normal state machine (emacs). React works well, because it's only an abstraction over the real DOM. Reac…

Functional doesn't mean stateless. I'd argue functional programming is superior for representing state in user interfaces. For a success implementation, see Jane Street's Bonsai:

https://github.com/janestreet/bonsai

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