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> I guess if Google want Fuchsia / Flutter to really take off, they will have to port Flutter to Javascript. just like that time when iOS was suddenly hot, but

> I guess if Google want Fuchsia / Flutter to really take off, they will have to port Flutter to Javascript. just like that time when iOS was suddenly hot, but there were no apps for it, because programmers hated Objective-C and weren't willing to learn it. So Apple released a new SDK and toolchain that allowed them to write apps in C++ instead. oh wait. Okay, all snark aside. Come on, guys. Isn't the fact that high tech is always new and innovative considered to be a good thing? So why is there always so much pressure to insist that every new thing has to be exactly like all the old things? Learning Dart is not difficult. I did it myself, without even trying. I just pretended I already knew it, by following examples I found online. After a couple of weeks, my pretend-knowing turned into real-knowing.

pjmlp 8y ago
Thing is, Objective-C was the official language on iOS, and yes they did release C++ support, it is called Objective-C++ and exists since NeXTSTEP days. Dart is just a programming language trying to get its killer app, which was dropped by Chrome team and gets political answers from Android team.
- allenbrunson 8y ago
  > Thing is, Objective-C was the official language on iOS, and yes they did release C++ support, it is called Objective-C++ and exists since NeXTSTEP days. I am well aware, I have used Objective-C++ myself, but it's irrelevant. No, you cannot write iOS apps completely in C++. you still have to use Objective-C or Swift when dealing with UI components. Further, Objective-C is not "just" a programming language, in this case. All of Apple's native frameworks are very strongly influenced by it. They allow you to do things that wouldn't be possible in other languages. Obviously, it's possible to translate that experience to something else (see Swift), but it's an entirely different experience. Worse, in my opinion. The same is true of Flutter and Dart. A lot of Flutter's architectural decisions are tied closely to the strengths (and weaknesses) of Dart. It would not make sense to switch to a different implementation language at this point.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Which is why Fuchsia is getting an UI agnostic composition engine, where Flutter is just another possibility. While there are experiments in a Rust based UI and now Android. I bet just like Brillo original plans, Flutter is on its way out.
    - hawski 8y ago
      By UI agnostic composition engine do you mean like Wayland? So every app is supposed to paint itself?
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        Every app is supposed to paint itself on any UI toolkit.
        hawski 8y ago
        So what makes UI agnostic composition engine different from other composition engines? Your answer means just a yes or "your question is irrelevant"? If the latter what I meant is a difference between Wayland and X. Wayland is a dumb pipe. X is mostly used as a dumb pipe, but it offers primitives to do the painting on the server side. Linux or Wayland does not have UI toolkit, but i.e. GNOME has.
        pjmlp 8y ago
        Scenic (https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/garnet/+/master/docs/ui/scenic.md https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/garnet/+/master/docs/ui/sce...) is similar to the UI compositor in Android, macOS, Windows. No different than using the UI toolkit of choice, while the window manager takes care of window decorations, OS input events and what have you. Just push the window contents into the scene graph using Fuchsia IPC.
  - jcelerier 8y ago
    > No, you cannot write iOS apps completely in C++. that's false. At least Qt supports deploying to iOS and you don't have to write a single line of objc

pjmlp 8y ago

Thing is, Objective-C was the official language on iOS, and yes they did release C++ support, it is called Objective-C++ and exists since NeXTSTEP days. Dart is just a programming language trying to get its killer app, which was dropped by Chrome team and gets political answers from Android team.

allenbrunson 8y ago
> Thing is, Objective-C was the official language on iOS, and yes they did release C++ support, it is called Objective-C++ and exists since NeXTSTEP days. I am well aware, I have used Objective-C++ myself, but it's irrelevant. No, you cannot write iOS apps completely in C++. you still have to use Objective-C or Swift when dealing with UI components. Further, Objective-C is not "just" a programming language, in this case. All of Apple's native frameworks are very strongly influenced by it. They allow you to do things that wouldn't be possible in other languages. Obviously, it's possible to translate that experience to something else (see Swift), but it's an entirely different experience. Worse, in my opinion. The same is true of Flutter and Dart. A lot of Flutter's architectural decisions are tied closely to the strengths (and weaknesses) of Dart. It would not make sense to switch to a different implementation language at this point.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Which is why Fuchsia is getting an UI agnostic composition engine, where Flutter is just another possibility. While there are experiments in a Rust based UI and now Android. I bet just like Brillo original plans, Flutter is on its way out.
  - hawski 8y ago
    By UI agnostic composition engine do you mean like Wayland? So every app is supposed to paint itself?
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Every app is supposed to paint itself on any UI toolkit.
      - hawski 8y ago
        So what makes UI agnostic composition engine different from other composition engines? Your answer means just a yes or "your question is irrelevant"? If the latter what I meant is a difference between Wayland and X. Wayland is a dumb pipe. X is mostly used as a dumb pipe, but it offers primitives to do the painting on the server side. Linux or Wayland does not have UI toolkit, but i.e. GNOME has.
        pjmlp 8y ago
        Scenic (https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/garnet/+/master/docs/ui/scenic.md https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/garnet/+/master/docs/ui/sce...) is similar to the UI compositor in Android, macOS, Windows. No different than using the UI toolkit of choice, while the window manager takes care of window decorations, OS input events and what have you. Just push the window contents into the scene graph using Fuchsia IPC.
- jcelerier 8y ago
  > No, you cannot write iOS apps completely in C++. that's false. At least Qt supports deploying to iOS and you don't have to write a single line of objc