5 ms·

I wonder if they intend to keep Flutter as the primary UI toolkit, or if that was just used out of convenience. If this really ends up being an Android & Chrome

by jrs95 10y ago

I wonder if they intend to keep Flutter as the primary UI toolkit, or if that was just used out of convenience. If this really ends up being an Android & Chrome OS replacement, and a large portion of code being written for it also ran natively on iOS, that'd be fantastic. Maybe even cool enough to get me to use Dart ;)

bitmapbrother 10y ago
Is there a reason not to use Flutter? From what I've seen of Flutter it seems like a very competent cross platform UI toolkit. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they announced that you can start using Dart/Flutter to write cross platform Android/iOS apps at I/O 2017.
- jrs95 10y ago
  Not that I'm aware of, although the site still says it's a technical preview.
- sethladd 10y ago
  (disclaimer: I work on the Flutter team.) You can use Flutter today to write an app that runs on iOS and Android. :)
  - greenhouse_gas 10y ago
    How is it in turns of speed? On one hand, the website says that it's compiled to native code (so it can be same speed/faster than Java), but on the other hand, it's based on a soft-type language, which makes optimization difficult (even with V8, JS is still slower than native code). Side question: I understand that Dart was soft-typed because it was supposed to replace/compile to JS, but what advantage does soft-types have against "implied-types" (like auto or go's := ) combined with operator overloading (to allow string+int, for example)?
    - kjksf 10y ago
      Even the original, untyped, Dart was designed to be easier to optimize that JavaScript (e.g. it's class based, not prototype based, so the runtime doesn't have t work as much to optimize object access). Recently Dart has added a strong mode (https://github.com/dart-archive/dev_compiler/blob/master/STRONG_MODE.md https://github.com/dart-archive/dev_compiler/blob/master/STR..., http://news.dartlang.org/2017/01/sound-dart-and-strong-mode.html http://news.dartlang.org/2017/01/sound-dart-and-strong-mode....). One of the reasons for strong mode is to enable better optimizations (https://www.dartlang.org/guides/language/sound-faq#why-strong-mode https://www.dartlang.org/guides/language/sound-faq#why-stron...).
      - throwayedidqo 10y ago
        I'm going to save these links for the next time I get downvoted for saying that js object system and dynamic typing suck for performance :). When JS performance threads come up I always mention that JS will never be as fast as Go/Java. Some people have a tantrum when I explain these issues. The sources I usually cite are dense and people just continue to downvote without reading them.
    - bitmapbrother 10y ago
      Dart supports strong typing.
    - markdog12 10y ago
      You might want to watch this talk on AOT compiling Dart, I'll link right to the perf benchmarks: https://youtu.be/lqE4u8s8Iik?t=9m28s https://youtu.be/lqE4u8s8Iik?t=9m28s I think it's a work in progress, but main benefit at least at the time was faster startup.
      - tomatsu 10y ago
        AOT compiling was initially all about iOS (where JIT isn't allowed), but you can now do that everywhere with "application snapshots" which were recently added with Dart 1.21. Unlike the script snapshots, application snapshots also include CPU-specific native code in addition to the serialized token stream of the source code. So, you don't just skip the parsing stage, you also skip the warmup phase. Your application starts instantly and it runs at full speed from the get-go. https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/wiki/Snapshots https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/wiki/Snapshots
  - remir 10y ago
    Is there any Google apps made using Flutter at the moment?
  - devwastaken 10y ago
    How is it for writing cross-platform desktop apps? There seems to be a dissapointing trend of UI toolkits only going for IOS and Android, leaving out the still very essential need of toolkits for cross-platform desktop apps in languages other than c++.
  - bsaul 10y ago
    read on the flutter site that text input still wasn't implemented, so i'll probably wait some more. I didn't find a doc on how low level is this framework going. Or to put it differently , where does it plug itself on the iOS stack ? opengl ? calayer ? uiview ? webview ? etc...
    - NocturnalWaffle 10y ago
      I was just looking into this two days later.. It's fairly low level. It uses Skia, which is a 2d rendering engine Google bought 12 years ago that powers Google Chome / ChromeOS, Android, Firefox and Firefox OS. Skia is built on top of OpenGL, but they've been working on a Vulkan backend that is close to feature parity. This seems to be how they get the high performance animations. It also explains how they are able to do cross compatibility between devices (You really only need C++ and OpenGL). Here's more info from their FAQ: https://flutter.io/faq/#what-technology-is-flutter-built-with https://flutter.io/faq/#what-technology-is-flutter-built-wit...
- dvdwasibi 10y ago
  There are two talks at I/O 2017 for Flutter. https://events.google.com/io/schedule/?sid=fed907cf-4b51-4337-8ee0-43bca96dec08#may-17 https://events.google.com/io/schedule/?sid=fed907cf-4b51-433... https://events.google.com/io/schedule/?sid=496d01fb-2139-4fd6-84b2-e585d1a20e61#may-19 https://events.google.com/io/schedule/?sid=496d01fb-2139-4fd... Disclaimer: I'm in one of the talks.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Last year from what I have watched on Dart conference in Munich, Flutter was still very much WIP, not sure how much it has progressed since then.
thosakwe 10y ago
Dart has really picked up a lot of traction in the past few years. If you do end up using Dart, I've got the perfect server-side framework for you to try out... ;) https://github.com/angel-dart/angel/wiki https://github.com/angel-dart/angel/wiki

by jrs95 10y ago

bitmapbrother 10y ago

Is there a reason not to use Flutter? From what I've seen of Flutter it seems like a very competent cross platform UI toolkit. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they announced that you can start using Dart/Flutter to write cross platform Android/iOS apps at I/O 2017.

jrs95 10y ago
Not that I'm aware of, although the site still says it's a technical preview.
sethladd 10y ago
(disclaimer: I work on the Flutter team.) You can use Flutter today to write an app that runs on iOS and Android. :)
- greenhouse_gas 10y ago
  How is it in turns of speed? On one hand, the website says that it's compiled to native code (so it can be same speed/faster than Java), but on the other hand, it's based on a soft-type language, which makes optimization difficult (even with V8, JS is still slower than native code). Side question: I understand that Dart was soft-typed because it was supposed to replace/compile to JS, but what advantage does soft-types have against "implied-types" (like auto or go's := ) combined with operator overloading (to allow string+int, for example)?
  - kjksf 10y ago
    Even the original, untyped, Dart was designed to be easier to optimize that JavaScript (e.g. it's class based, not prototype based, so the runtime doesn't have t work as much to optimize object access). Recently Dart has added a strong mode (https://github.com/dart-archive/dev_compiler/blob/master/STRONG_MODE.md https://github.com/dart-archive/dev_compiler/blob/master/STR..., http://news.dartlang.org/2017/01/sound-dart-and-strong-mode.html http://news.dartlang.org/2017/01/sound-dart-and-strong-mode....). One of the reasons for strong mode is to enable better optimizations (https://www.dartlang.org/guides/language/sound-faq#why-strong-mode https://www.dartlang.org/guides/language/sound-faq#why-stron...).
    - throwayedidqo 10y ago
      I'm going to save these links for the next time I get downvoted for saying that js object system and dynamic typing suck for performance :). When JS performance threads come up I always mention that JS will never be as fast as Go/Java. Some people have a tantrum when I explain these issues. The sources I usually cite are dense and people just continue to downvote without reading them.
  - bitmapbrother 10y ago
    Dart supports strong typing.
  - markdog12 10y ago
    You might want to watch this talk on AOT compiling Dart, I'll link right to the perf benchmarks: https://youtu.be/lqE4u8s8Iik?t=9m28s https://youtu.be/lqE4u8s8Iik?t=9m28s I think it's a work in progress, but main benefit at least at the time was faster startup.
    - tomatsu 10y ago
      AOT compiling was initially all about iOS (where JIT isn't allowed), but you can now do that everywhere with "application snapshots" which were recently added with Dart 1.21. Unlike the script snapshots, application snapshots also include CPU-specific native code in addition to the serialized token stream of the source code. So, you don't just skip the parsing stage, you also skip the warmup phase. Your application starts instantly and it runs at full speed from the get-go. https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/wiki/Snapshots https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/wiki/Snapshots
- remir 10y ago
  Is there any Google apps made using Flutter at the moment?
- devwastaken 10y ago
  How is it for writing cross-platform desktop apps? There seems to be a dissapointing trend of UI toolkits only going for IOS and Android, leaving out the still very essential need of toolkits for cross-platform desktop apps in languages other than c++.
- bsaul 10y ago
  read on the flutter site that text input still wasn't implemented, so i'll probably wait some more. I didn't find a doc on how low level is this framework going. Or to put it differently , where does it plug itself on the iOS stack ? opengl ? calayer ? uiview ? webview ? etc...
  - NocturnalWaffle 10y ago
    I was just looking into this two days later.. It's fairly low level. It uses Skia, which is a 2d rendering engine Google bought 12 years ago that powers Google Chome / ChromeOS, Android, Firefox and Firefox OS. Skia is built on top of OpenGL, but they've been working on a Vulkan backend that is close to feature parity. This seems to be how they get the high performance animations. It also explains how they are able to do cross compatibility between devices (You really only need C++ and OpenGL). Here's more info from their FAQ: https://flutter.io/faq/#what-technology-is-flutter-built-with https://flutter.io/faq/#what-technology-is-flutter-built-wit...
dvdwasibi 10y ago
There are two talks at I/O 2017 for Flutter. https://events.google.com/io/schedule/?sid=fed907cf-4b51-4337-8ee0-43bca96dec08#may-17 https://events.google.com/io/schedule/?sid=fed907cf-4b51-433... https://events.google.com/io/schedule/?sid=496d01fb-2139-4fd6-84b2-e585d1a20e61#may-19 https://events.google.com/io/schedule/?sid=496d01fb-2139-4fd... Disclaimer: I'm in one of the talks.
pjmlp 10y ago
Last year from what I have watched on Dart conference in Munich, Flutter was still very much WIP, not sure how much it has progressed since then.

thosakwe 10y ago

Dart has really picked up a lot of traction in the past few years. If you do end up using Dart, I've got the perfect server-side framework for you to try out... ;) https://github.com/angel-dart/angel/wiki https://github.com/angel-dart/angel/wiki