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Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

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Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#61

Post by Moldoteck »

realusername wrote: post #13
samtheprogram wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question concerning how much of a bubble I am in: > Flutter is amazingly successful. It's already the leading mobile app development framework Is this true? Over iOS native, Android native, React Native, or any other hybrid frameworks? EDIT: numbers can tell different stories, but here's one at least against React Native (which I'm most interested in) in Flutter's favor: https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/02/21/…

In terms of numbers I don't know but I personally chose it from my apps and to me it's the best framework out there at the moment. Compared to the native tech the advantages are easy, you have a single codebase and UI for all the platforms. The native UI apis are also moving faster than Flutter in my opinion which makes Flutter lower maintenance as well on this area. Compared to React Native, it's younger but more st…

do you have any opinions on kotlin multiplatform? Afaik they want to roll out even the compose multiplatform this year

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#62

Post by drcongo »

wg0 wrote: post #30
rapsey wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flutter is mainly a mobile framework. Electron owns the desktop, anyone using flutter on the web is crazy. While you're points are valid, they are kind of irrelevant.

The marketing literature begs to differ. The Google's own Family Link app even on web[0] is also a Flutter app. [0]. https://familylink.google.com

Ironically, that page just shows me "Something went wrong" which I guess proves your point somewhat.

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#63

Post by realusername »

Moldoteck wrote: post #61
realusername wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of numbers I don't know but I personally chose it from my apps and to me it's the best framework out there at the moment. Compared to the native tech the advantages are easy, you have a single codebase and UI for all the platforms. The native UI apis are also moving faster than Flutter in my opinion which makes Flutter lower maintenance as well on this area. Compared to React Native, it's younger but more st…

do you have any opinions on kotlin multiplatform? Afaik they want to roll out even the compose multiplatform this year

I haven't tried it yet, I'm a bit afraid on the ios side since they label it "alpha"

I need to dedicate some time to try it.

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#64

Post by pjmlp »

wg0 wrote: post #18

Flutter has three major problems: - Performance: Even on Desktop, animations have jank. Last I compiled samples on Mac, the problem was visibly there. - UX: Text editing immediately feels alien. If Mac for example, you have a text field in a native app and on the side you have a flutter app with a text field, you can tell the difference between the "feel" when you type in each. This isn't necessarily limited to text…

Fourth, it was never wanted from the Android team, with key figures like Jake Wharton having issues with it,

"Flutter is a manifestation of everything wrong with Google as a company. A language that should have (and did) fail but kept alive. Control of the two most popular platforms on the planet and failing to unify them while allowing a third to be created that actively undermines both"

https://twitter.com/JakeWharton/status/1421139368467632136

You also see this from Flutter's point of view on Tim's tweets

"That all happened, and set a bar that others had to invest heavily to compete with. Jetpack Compose was essentially a Kotlin clone of Flutter, literally to the point of translating large chunks of code."

To this day, Flutter is yet to be part of the official SDK tooling.

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#65

Post by pjmlp »

rapsey wrote: post #60
rob74 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant it's a small niche for Flutter to address only the apps that want to be cross-platform, don't want to invest into having "native" iOS and Android versions, but are Ok with using a different technology for desktop/web (or don't need those).

It is not a small niche at all. A ton of things are mobile first/only.

And plenty of well known companies have discovered that mastering two native stacks is still easier and cheaper in the long run, than mastering a "cross-platform stack" framework + dealing with leaky abstractions + build integration issues + having to master the native stack anyway.

Either go mobile Web, or native.

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#66

Post by pjmlp »

rapsey wrote: post #43
ffgjgf1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it’s not bringing something particular new or useful to the table? Xamarin/mono already tried almost the same approach years ago and it clearly failed..

Did it fail because it is impossible, because of poor execution, poor dev experience or it was simply too early? Flutter seems to be quite popular.

All these frameworks are leaky abstractions, they only avoid mastering the underlying platform as long as people stay on the happy path.

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#67

Post by pjmlp »

jamil7 wrote: post #55
bsaul wrote: post #49

Isn't flutter supposed to also be the main way to develop UIs on google Fuschia ? Which is supposed to be the successor to android ? I'm surprised to see no mention of that aspect. Did i miss something ?

Is Fuschia meant to be anything more than an R&D project where some ideas get moved back to Android?

There are some smart devices shipping with it, but that is about all.

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#68

Post by sgt »

rapsey wrote: post #46
sgt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a use case for Flutter Web and that is an extremely simple user interface such a form or a simple workflow, which can share code with e.g. a mobile app. Other than that I agree - Flutter web is not going to be a good choice and that was never really the goal for them, I believe.

Extremely simple user interface can be done in anything and code sharing is irrelevant for it though.

Fair enough, but if the interface is simple yet has somewhat complex validation logic, it may just make sense.

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#69

Post by anonymoushn »

s6ro wrote: post #58
vincnetas wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, what have we come to. I cant select text from a webpage. This is not what our grandfathers fought for :(

Developers have control, if text is selectable or not. https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/material/SelectableText-clas...

That sucks :)

Re: Flutter seems to be having bad times internally

#70

Post by zigzag312 »

wg0 wrote: post #18

Flutter has three major problems: - Performance: Even on Desktop, animations have jank. Last I compiled samples on Mac, the problem was visibly there. - UX: Text editing immediately feels alien. If Mac for example, you have a text field in a native app and on the side you have a flutter app with a text field, you can tell the difference between the "feel" when you type in each. This isn't necessarily limited to text…

- Performance: I agree it's not there yet. But it's still improving. There is currently major Skia to Impeller migration in progress. It look like Flutter should be able to reach good performance once it matures. The only long term limiting factor regarding performance is declarative architecture of Futter, which adds a bit of overhead.

- UX: Again I agree. It's not there yet. But due to Flutter being based on low level APIs, there is nothing preventing it to mimic any platform's "feel". This is also still being improved. While Flutter will UX probably never 100% match any OS's native UX, as it implements everything on it's own, it could reach the same UX quality.

- Web: IMO, Flutter weakest platform. Let's see what WasmGC support brings.

I would add fourth problem: Dart. It's not a bad language, but it is years behind with features, performance is currently the same as JS (even though it's statically-typed, AOT compiled language), ecosystem is small and it tries too hard to keep compatibility with JS target (eg. no proper unsigned 64-bit ints).

So, currently there are still some moderate issues with Flutter. But its foundations are good. It all depends on Google to keep investing in Flutter.

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