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Dart still has a long way to go as a language to catch up on the recent trends of statically typed PL (rust and swift come to mind), flutter needs constant upd

by bsaul 8y ago

Dart still has a long way to go as a language to catch up on the recent trends of statically typed PL (rust and swift come to mind), flutter needs constant update for every release of both iOS and Android to make sure their native theme are up to date and that they offer a decent equivalent to any new GUI component those platform release. Just look at how long it took to get a correct map on flutter (and i don't think they've catched up yet). I think they took a very good direction from a technical point of view, to recode everything from the lowest level possible, but that kind of approach requires a tremendous level of commitment.

lorriman 8y ago
Languages don't need to keep up with trends to stay used. But updating languages is the fun stuff; there won't be a problem with volunteers for that especially at universities. All the hard work has been done, unless an update would require a complete rewrite of the compilers which, sure, isn't likely. Flutter needs an update once a year at most, and is mostly cosmetic and a bit of wrapping. Again, the heavy lifting has been done. Coding from the bottom up....has been done. I think you may be overstating the 'commitment'. What we need to keep in mind here, is the context, that dart/flutter is easy access - it's no Angular or Cocoa - and that no sane, mature dev programs in only one language and one platform unless it's legacy. We're not talking about a massive commitment from a dev, so talk of 'being burned' by Dart 1.0 is already a bit of a headscratcher when google didn't drop it, rather changed up and arguably improved Dart. How can that be called 'being burned'. For instance, dropping the need for 'new'. So, sure, it makes the code slightly less readable, but it also opens Dart to neat code and even maybe DSLs. Then they added Flutter.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Dart was rescued from being completely dropped by AdWords team, while key designers like Gilad abandoned the project not happy with how things were going.

by bsaul 8y ago

lorriman 8y ago

Languages don't need to keep up with trends to stay used. But updating languages is the fun stuff; there won't be a problem with volunteers for that especially at universities. All the hard work has been done, unless an update would require a complete rewrite of the compilers which, sure, isn't likely. Flutter needs an update once a year at most, and is mostly cosmetic and a bit of wrapping. Again, the heavy lifting has been done. Coding from the bottom up....has been done. I think you may be overstating the 'commitment'. What we need to keep in mind here, is the context, that dart/flutter is easy access - it's no Angular or Cocoa - and that no sane, mature dev programs in only one language and one platform unless it's legacy. We're not talking about a massive commitment from a dev, so talk of 'being burned' by Dart 1.0 is already a bit of a headscratcher when google didn't drop it, rather changed up and arguably improved Dart. How can that be called 'being burned'. For instance, dropping the need for 'new'. So, sure, it makes the code slightly less readable, but it also opens Dart to neat code and even maybe DSLs. Then they added Flutter.

pjmlp 8y ago
Dart was rescued from being completely dropped by AdWords team, while key designers like Gilad abandoned the project not happy with how things were going.