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I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

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Re: I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because I know Java (hypothetically I haven’t touched Java since two years after it was introduced) I can become an efficient Android developer “in a few days”. Better yet, since I did Windows CE development for ruggedized devices using C# Compact framework back between 2007-2010, I should have no problem picking up iOS development “in a few days” and start being a productive member of a team right? Or better yet…

Personally, yeah, I would have no trouble hiring you for any of those things, based on your experiences. I wouldn't have expectations that you'd be the most productive member of those teams "in a few days", but a few months, sure. And I would expect your wisdom from working on a bunch of different things to be a lot more impactful than whatever fine grained details you don't yet know of the exact technology we're usi…

You're saying that in isolation. If you have 50 other resumes on your desk for a React job, there's no way you're going to choose the guy who hasn't touched front-end since 2012.

Re: I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

#92

Dart is my biggest issue with Flutter. It's still missing ergonomic features like data classes and lower level things like unsigned 64-bit integers. There is no runtime reflection, which I think is a good thing for end user apps, but it's also missing static metaprogramming. And code generation is not integrated into a complier. Since, there is no runtime reflection, metaprogramming & integrated code-gen are sorely n…

The biggest issue with Dart IMHO is not so much the language itself, but the ecosystem. For the record, Swift suffers from this problem as well. Kotlin only avoids it because of Java interop, although even this becomes complicated because of Google’s half-assed implementation of Java on Android. I think this is one of the biggest reasons to reach for JavaScript instead. It has a lot of flaws, but it has a huge ecosys…

Also worth keeping in mind some of the cross language extension points in Dart.

Compiles to Wasm and can work with other compile to wasm languages.

Has quite good support for C, C++, JS, Swift, Java and Rust interop where they have tools that will write all of the glue code for you.

Also has decent gRPC support meaning you can use any other language that also fits that category.

It’s a small Dart ecosystem but it’s fundamentals are great and it’s extension points are much better than you will likely find elsewhere.

Re: I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

#93
post #36
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hiring managers and recruiter match buzzwords in your CV So? You put those buzzwords in your CV. What’s difficult about that? You feel like being dishonest? If so, again, just explain in the next stage of the interview (with real engineers) that you do have real world experience in similar but not exactly the same technologies listed in your CV. You just did so to pass through HR. Not a big deal (as long as you’re…

Blatantly lying on the CV is an instant rejection at the places I've worked. It's one thing to stretch your contributions on past projects, but to outright lie about the technologies used is a huge red flag. It's easy to teach a person the company tech stack, but I'm not sure it's possible (or worthwhile) to try and teach some one to be honest.

You don't need to make up projects you worked on with the technology, you can just add it to your list of skills.

Re: I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

#94
post #19

Dart is my biggest issue with Flutter. It's still missing ergonomic features like data classes and lower level things like unsigned 64-bit integers. There is no runtime reflection, which I think is a good thing for end user apps, but it's also missing static metaprogramming. And code generation is not integrated into a complier. Since, there is no runtime reflection, metaprogramming & integrated code-gen are sorely n…

It may lack things - true. But it's a pleasure to work in. I code quite a bit of Dart these days and the language never really holds you back. It flows quite easily. I use some code generation by having a build runner in the background.

I'm wondering how you deal with the pile of constructor calls needed to construct views in Flutter? Deeply nested expressions remind me of Lisp.

JSX is conceptually the same but somehow seems easier to read. Maybe it's the close tags?

Re: I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you don’t include in that number - most apps built by Google.

Is that actually true though? Most major Google apps predate Flutter. I was under the impression that a lot of their apps are either custom web view wrappers or native with shared C++ code for business logic. Stadia and Google Pay are the only consumer facing Google apps I’m aware of that are made with Flutter.

Ads is all flutter on mobile and Dart on the web.

Fuchsia is an OS that is also using Flutter for their entire UI layer.

I think there’s more a case of there isn’t an argument for doing but rewrites just because Flutter is now a thing but in a greenfield scenario it would be a serious contender

Re: I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, yeah, I would have no trouble hiring you for any of those things, based on your experiences. I wouldn't have expectations that you'd be the most productive member of those teams "in a few days", but a few months, sure. And I would expect your wisdom from working on a bunch of different things to be a lot more impactful than whatever fine grained details you don't yet know of the exact technology we're usi…

You're saying that in isolation. If you have 50 other resumes on your desk for a React job, there's no way you're going to choose the guy who hasn't touched front-end since 2012.

I’ve done this exact thing. Stop telling people how they’d act.

Re: I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

#98
post #75

For anyone reading this and if you want to develop mobile apps, just first learn native iOS/Android platforms, they are not going anywhere before you get tempted by other flashy technologies like Flutter or React Native. Most companies including the ones that created these cross platform frameworks, build thier core apps using native stack for a reason.

I'd argue the opposite. For a lot of people, getting quick results is absolutely needed for motivation. Focusing on learning "the fundamentals" before getting to the enjoyable parts is bad advice for most, as it often leads to people dropping out before they get hooked.

I agree that you probably can't be a decent mobile dev in the long term without learning basic iOS/Swift or Android/Java(/probably Kotlin nowadays) but that is not a good place to start for people who are just getting started.

Re: I feel like I made a mistake investing professionally into Flutter

#100
post #15

I don’t buy it. As software developers we learn technologies for breakfast. We learn them, and then we forget them. We recollect the wisdom gained and apply it in our next gig using a different technology. It works for mobile development, for frontend, for backend, for infra, for almost anything. I have worked for years with PHP, Apache, Ansible and MySQL. Nowadays not anymore. And in 7 years I’ll be using something…

"you won’t have difficulty in learning X, just take a few days in learning X"

It isn't 2020 anymore. No. No, one is going to hire someone that is going to learn "react on the fly".

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