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Skip is now free and open source

skip.dev

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Re: Skip is now free and open source

#41

Post by marcprux »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #20
marcprux wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you're running both the iOS development tools (Xcode, iOS Simulator), plus the Android development tools (Gradle, Android emulator, and maybe Android Studio too). These add up. 16GB might be possible, though. (Skip itself doesn't take much memory. If you run it headlessly as a SwiftPM plugin, you wouldn't need nearly that much.)

Do you have to run both at the same time? Because my flow with React Native is to focus on one platform at a time, I don't try to run everything in one shot.

No, you can configure it to just build and launch for iOS or Android separately. But we do recommend iterating on both in parallel for most of the UI work, just to make sure that everything stays in sync.

For framework/library development, you can of course build and test separately for each platform.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#42

Post by trevor-e »

agentifysh wrote: post #34

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications. I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.

Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS so it doesn't seem like a serious contender to me at this point. And due to the nature of how Flutter is implemented, it's going to continuously be an uphill battle. Maybe it's fine if you intend on having a completely custom UI and don't care about platform look and feel.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#43

Post by cosmic_cheese »

trevor-e wrote: post #42
agentifysh wrote: post #34

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications. I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.

Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS so it doesn't seem like a serious contender to me at this point. And due to the nature of how Flutter is implemented, it's going to continuously be an uphill battle. Maybe it's fine if you intend on having a completely custom UI and don't care about platform look and feel.

In general, the "render UI as if it were a video game" route feels like a bit of a dead end on mobile to me. On desktop it's more workable but still isn't without issues.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#44

Post by marcprux »

agentifysh wrote: post #34

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications. I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.

See my response below on the KMP question: the comparison with CMP mostly applies to Flutter as well.

> near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible)

Not as of the advent of Liquid Glass on iOS (and, to a lesser extent, Material Expressive on Android). Flutter isn't going to be implementing these new interface conventions[1], and so the UI for these apps are stuck on the last generation and are already starting to feel outdated.

Flutter's grim outlook has resulted in a surge of interest in Skip, and it was one of the drivers for us to open up the platform and catch the wave. If you love Dart, or if your apps don't need to look native (e.g., games or very bespoke interfaces), then Flutter might continue to be acceptable. But everyone else is starting to look elsewhere, especially in cases where their business depends on their apps feeling premium and native.

[1] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/170310

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#45

Post by skavi »

agentifysh wrote: post #34

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications. I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.

Dunno about Skip, but I can always tell when an app is Flutter. They feel like crap. Everything's a bit off with the native looking widgets. And fully custom designs still animate a bit weirdly. And they definitely still stutter. Somehow a tier below React Native.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#46

Post by winrid »

skavi wrote: post #45
agentifysh wrote: post #34

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications. I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.

Dunno about Skip, but I can always tell when an app is Flutter. They feel like crap. Everything's a bit off with the native looking widgets. And fully custom designs still animate a bit weirdly. And they definitely still stutter. Somehow a tier below React Native.

Flutter re-generates the entire layout every tick and diffs it (immediate-mode), like a game engine. If your device isn't quite fast enough it'll lag, yep. RN is retained mode (but written in immediate-mode style and the diffing only happens when it has to).

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#47

Post by vishrajiv »

Thank you for making it open-source (and free!) I looked into Skip before because I’d rather write native Swift than the in-between tangle of code that React Native tends to become. What prevented me from using it was the lack of case studies or apps in production. Has that changed? I looked on the homepage and couldn’t see any. Of course, I understand it might be a growing community and targeted to early adopters for now.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#48

Post by skybrian »

trevor-e wrote: post #42
agentifysh wrote: post #34

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications. I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.

Flutter still doesn't support liquid glass on iOS so it doesn't seem like a serious contender to me at this point. And due to the nature of how Flutter is implemented, it's going to continuously be an uphill battle. Maybe it's fine if you intend on having a completely custom UI and don't care about platform look and feel.

I've heard bad things about liquid glass and plan to skip that OS release, so not implementing it seems like an advantage from my perspective.

Re: Skip is now free and open source

#49

Post by well_ackshually »

agentifysh wrote: post #34

This is a welcome addition but why should Flutter devs use this ? Seems like it requires 32gb of ram! Also Flutter is already very mature and can produce not only near-native mobile apps (the difference is almost negligible) but can target desktop and even web applications. I do wonder how much of a boost skip offers vs Flutter's mobile apps. Will give skip a try when dram prices normalize.

Flutter is fine if you don't care about performance, accessibility, have no need to access native capabilities or non-fluttered widgets (ex: the Google map integration is awful) and overall just want to make an internal app.

The cost of making an excellent flutter app is about the same you'd pay making fully native apps. Except that you're always paying for Skia's costs with Flutter.

This recommends 32GB to run _everything_, so xcode, gradle, emulators, simulators, etc. Not fully surprising.

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