Live data from Hacker News

Ready for Production Apps: Flutter Beta 3

developers.googleblog.com

1–10 of 107 posts

Re: Ready for Production Apps: Flutter Beta 3

#2
I've been playing around with Flutter for a few weeks now and I'm convinced that this is the future of cross platform app development. I was initially put off by having to learn an obscure language (Dart), but the reality is, it's a lot easier to learn than learning all the semantics, tools and practices that come with a massive ecosystem like React.

Re: Ready for Production Apps: Flutter Beta 3

#4
post #2

I've been playing around with Flutter for a few weeks now and I'm convinced that this is the future of cross platform app development. I was initially put off by having to learn an obscure language (Dart), but the reality is, it's a lot easier to learn than learning all the semantics, tools and practices that come with a massive ecosystem like React.

I'm evaluating it. Why do you think it's the future? What's the feature you value most?

Re: Ready for Production Apps: Flutter Beta 3

#5
This has been posted 4 times before with zero interest in it when it was announced a month ago.

Did something change?

Did someone just want an excuse to talk about flutter for a bit?

I'm quite opposed to this 'post random link on topic X because I want to talk about X' thing.

If you want to talk about flutter at least bother to find something which is technically interesting to read. This is just marketing talk.

Re: Ready for Production Apps: Flutter Beta 3

#7
post #4
post #2

I've been playing around with Flutter for a few weeks now and I'm convinced that this is the future of cross platform app development. I was initially put off by having to learn an obscure language (Dart), but the reality is, it's a lot easier to learn than learning all the semantics, tools and practices that come with a massive ecosystem like React.

I'm evaluating it. Why do you think it's the future? What's the feature you value most?

I tried both Flutter and ReactNative. I am not an expert, so take it with a grain of salt, but here is my first impression:

I would say the best part about it is the hot reload, which maintains application state. It's compiled to native code so it's going to run faster than ReactNative which is a javascript bundle that runs besides your app. Compile times are fast, but not instantaneous and you have to trigger the reload manually.

I think it also has the most complete implementation of Material UI out there. It implements widgets that are not implemented in iOS, Android nor Web. It's like having something like bootstrap that makes it easier to build a good looking app. I feel like you really need a mock first to build a reactnative app, but you could get away with just writing code in flutter.

Unlike ReactNative there is no way of trying it without installing the Android or iOS development environment. Initially that was a bit of a barrier for me as a first-time mobile dev, but not a big deal eventually.

It's not as mature as ReactNative. There was no build-in way to do audio, something I need for the app I am trying to build. However, I found a plugin for it on github.

I know Google has a reputation of canceling projects, but Flutter is used to develop the Google AdWords app so I don't think it will go away anytime soon.

Re: Ready for Production Apps: Flutter Beta 3

#8
post #4
post #2

I've been playing around with Flutter for a few weeks now and I'm convinced that this is the future of cross platform app development. I was initially put off by having to learn an obscure language (Dart), but the reality is, it's a lot easier to learn than learning all the semantics, tools and practices that come with a massive ecosystem like React.

I'm evaluating it. Why do you think it's the future? What's the feature you value most?

I've been a React fanatic for several years, so my opinion is colored by that:

1. Great DX (developer experience) - a single language (Dart); no need for JSX, JavaScript, JSON, Flux/Redux and various other libraries. You can focus on the business logic rather than battling the ecosystem.

2. A single set of components (no iOS or Android specific navigator components etc.)

3. No longer need a JS engine to run - truly native

4. As fast as promised

Re: Ready for Production Apps: Flutter Beta 3

#9
I am having a side project built with Flutter. (here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=zero.sleep.com... ). The ecosystem is not as big as ReactNative (because Dart + it's new) but the developer exerience is really good. Dart is not that bad, and I really love the toolings even they were in the experimental state. Hot Reload, good IDE, typed, Java-like but less verbose, stream...

Re: Ready for Production Apps: Flutter Beta 3

#10
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm evaluating it. Why do you think it's the future? What's the feature you value most?

I've been a React fanatic for several years, so my opinion is colored by that: 1. Great DX (developer experience) - a single language (Dart); no need for JSX, JavaScript, JSON, Flux/Redux and various other libraries. You can focus on the business logic rather than battling the ecosystem. 2. A single set of components (no iOS or Android specific navigator components etc.) 3. No longer need a JS engine to run - truly n…

Being agree with all 4 points I see two drawbacks:

1. Not using OEM widgets. Even the rendered widgets may look good, they can't beat the native widgets optimized for the particular platform.

2. The choice of Dart as the main language.

I can understand both points though

Post reply on HN