Flutter 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: Flutter 2

#291

Post by ASalazarMX » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

lordgroff wrote: post #183

yagodragon wrote: post #112

We're all complaining about how js is a bad language, tooling is a mess, and how the web is fundamentally built for documents and makes it hard to create app-like experiences. Now, Google comes and creates a whole new UI toolkit from scratch, couples it with a very beautiful SDK and component framework and offers a far better programming language than js could ever be but we're still nagging. I was also pretty disapp…

Maybe it's just me but I don't remotely think JS is a bad language since es6. Tooling is another story entirely.

JavaScript is 26 years old, people were calling COBOL old in the 90s, when it was 30+ years old.

COBOL is still being updated, it even supports OOP now, yet it shows its age and its joints creak a little, just like JavaScript.

Re: Flutter 2

#292

Post by dmitryminkovsky » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

qbasic_forever wrote: post #286

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> History has shown us over and over again, always bet on the web. This is a mantra on HN. But is it true? I don’t think it is if you’re trying to build a big product mainstream people will use. People want native apps. No one needs the apps to work in 25 years. The web is just part of the picture, an important part, but still just a part.

The same engine of HTML + JS has powered entire businesses and industries from $0 to billions and billions of dollars over 25 years. Amazon.com would not exist without web browsers, and its entire trillion dollar+ business is an enormous bet on the web. I would say there's zero danger of the web going away when folks like that (and many, many more... Google, Facebook, etc.) depend on the web for every microsecond of…

If today FAANG had to choose: shut down your websites or shut down your native apps: which would it be?

Which platform did Clubhouse build out first? Why?

Re: Flutter 2

#293

Post by throwaway123x2 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

blacktriangle wrote: post #132

yagodragon wrote: post #112

We're all complaining about how js is a bad language, tooling is a mess, and how the web is fundamentally built for documents and makes it hard to create app-like experiences. Now, Google comes and creates a whole new UI toolkit from scratch, couples it with a very beautiful SDK and component framework and offers a far better programming language than js could ever be but we're still nagging. I was also pretty disapp…

We're nagging because the apps suck and stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe Flutter will be the one to get there and be the holy grail of cross platform UI development, but the developer community has been burned by this promise so many times, we're going to have to see the final product before getting excited. Just because a project is ambitious doesn't mean we should all jump on board, particularly when similar proj…

Oof remember when PhoneGap was the next big thing? RIP

Re: Flutter 2

#294

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #233

pier25 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dart is extremely easy to pick up if you've written in any C style language. Someone in our team had a small Android TV app working in 2-3 days with WebSockets, web views, some animations, etc.

Syntax, semantics, code organization and best practices, libraries, frameworks, debugging and debuggers, IDE support (preferably multiple IDEs for multiple platforms), LSP support, linters, profilers, disassemblers, dependency license checkers, dependency vulnerability scanners, package managers, package repository with support for private repos and proxying/mirroring, should I go on and on and on? Your toy app takes…

> crappy tech

What kind of an argument is this?

Not wanting to learn all those things for multiple languages is valid. But "it would take a while" doesn't tell you anything about whether a language is crappy.

The odds are pretty close to 50:50 that the language you already know is the crappier one.

Re: Flutter 2

#295

Post by someguydave » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

qbasic_forever wrote: post #246

yagodragon wrote: post #112

We're all complaining about how js is a bad language, tooling is a mess, and how the web is fundamentally built for documents and makes it hard to create app-like experiences. Now, Google comes and creates a whole new UI toolkit from scratch, couples it with a very beautiful SDK and component framework and offers a far better programming language than js could ever be but we're still nagging. I was also pretty disapp…

History has shown us over and over again, always bet on the web. Sure you might not like JS as a language, you might find CSS confusing and full of warts, etc. but it's here and will be here 20, 50, and 100 years from now. We're not going to just sit up and throw away 25+ years of progress and history on the web overnight. Tech like java applets, flash, silverlight, etc. come and go like fads. Who knows if Google wil…

I will gladly throw away 25 years of “progress” because it is just programmer busywork and monopoly lock-in.

Re: Flutter 2

#296

Post by tamrix » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

qbasic_forever wrote: post #246

yagodragon wrote: post #112

We're all complaining about how js is a bad language, tooling is a mess, and how the web is fundamentally built for documents and makes it hard to create app-like experiences. Now, Google comes and creates a whole new UI toolkit from scratch, couples it with a very beautiful SDK and component framework and offers a far better programming language than js could ever be but we're still nagging. I was also pretty disapp…

History has shown us over and over again, always bet on the web. Sure you might not like JS as a language, you might find CSS confusing and full of warts, etc. but it's here and will be here 20, 50, and 100 years from now. We're not going to just sit up and throw away 25+ years of progress and history on the web overnight. Tech like java applets, flash, silverlight, etc. come and go like fads. Who knows if Google wil…

Google does have a history of ditching tech that, to them, doesn't work out.

Re: Flutter 2

#297

Post by danShumway » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

mdoms wrote: post #197

yagodragon wrote: post #112

We're all complaining about how js is a bad language, tooling is a mess, and how the web is fundamentally built for documents and makes it hard to create app-like experiences. Now, Google comes and creates a whole new UI toolkit from scratch, couples it with a very beautiful SDK and component framework and offers a far better programming language than js could ever be but we're still nagging. I was also pretty disapp…

I just visited flutterfolio.com. The very first thing I tried to do is enter a username and Tab to the password field. But Tab just catapulted my input focus to the browser address bar. I mean, come on.

The accessibility is a bigger concern, but flutterfolio.com also

A) lags on my work machine when tabbing through fields

B) doesn't handle HDPI screens well (the entire interface looks blurry)

C) keeps fields visually indicated as selected even when I click outside of the browser (if I start typing, is it going to go into the field or not?)

D) has a separate touch mode? Touch doesn't just work?

Looked up another of their sample apps:

A) doesn't respect my OS scroll direction

B) lags on scroll

C) mousing over any of the buttons has a 0.5 second delay before my cursor turns into a hand icon.

And all of these sample apps take about a second to fully load for me, despite the fact that most of them aren't doing anything complicated.

The "we can rebuild the browser in Canvas" idea is alive and well in GUI toolkits, but I have never seen an implementation that didn't have these kinds of basic problems. How many UI toolkits do we need to see that can't figure out how to do scrolling before we acknowledge that having one team try to independently reimplement decades of work on the web might just be a bad idea?

Re: Flutter 2

#298

Post by Keyframe » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

nullifidian wrote: post #95

Keyframe wrote: post #55

I haven't really looked, apart from glancing, into flutter yet. Now with desktops and mobile, premise seems interesting. How and does it compare to Qt?

I'm not sure, but I think that you have to use Dart language to use Flutter. Incidentally, I was pretty sure that Dart was dead. Turns out it's alive. I'm not sure what it is currently, now that it's statically typed, null safe and all. What are Dart's killer features?

What are Dart's killer features?

Looks like we're discussing one - flutter?

Re: Flutter 2

#299

Post by mediaman » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

mdoms wrote: post #197

yagodragon wrote: post #112

We're all complaining about how js is a bad language, tooling is a mess, and how the web is fundamentally built for documents and makes it hard to create app-like experiences. Now, Google comes and creates a whole new UI toolkit from scratch, couples it with a very beautiful SDK and component framework and offers a far better programming language than js could ever be but we're still nagging. I was also pretty disapp…

I just visited flutterfolio.com. The very first thing I tried to do is enter a username and Tab to the password field. But Tab just catapulted my input focus to the browser address bar. I mean, come on.

On safari it doesn't do that if the contents are blank, but if you type something in the email box, tab directs to the address bar. Weird.

Works fine on Firefox and Chrome.

Re: Flutter 2

#300

Post by whalesalad » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

eulers_secret wrote: post #218

whalesalad wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting rationalization. Don’t you think copying text is the norm and not the exception?

I do think it's the norm, and very much dislike this trend. I should make my position more clear: I hate this stuff with a passion. But, big business wants better content protection, and big money always gets what it wants - very few exceptions there. I wish we could do something as technologists who want to keep these features of the web; but against trillion dollar companies I know who I'd bet for...

With that attitude they will continue to win!