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I'm actually a great fan of flutter and imo it is the best cross-platform solution out there. Probably except for web: though it produces very good result perfo

I'm actually a great fan of flutter and imo it is the best cross-platform solution out there. Probably except for web: though it produces very good result performance-wise, the end result is never really "web" and doesn't act like traditional web. As for desktop applications(whether it be windows, linux or mac), it seems like it's too mobile-oriented. I see great potential for simple solutions like self-service operations where you need a basic UI and it would be great if it could easily target platforms like raspberry pi (arm processors running Linux). But at the moment, while possible, it is a very painful thing to tackle and I wouldn't rely on something like that for an end product. I would assume that this is why google is working on fuchsia but way too few devices are supported. And neither of them is cheap(which is what could be a game changer, going back to the raspberry pi).

mikece 6y ago
Flutter's ability to "compile to web" was something that confused me at first as well, but on second thought it's genius. It makes it easier to ease managers into selecting Flutter since deployments and updates are done via a web browser. If that works for them then maybe there's never a need to go fully native though that option exists if they want to -- and the ability to go back to compiling for web gives managers a sense of "this isn't a one-way, I'm screwed if something goes wrong" journey.
- anonms-coward 6y ago
  > and the ability to go back to compiling for web gives managers a sense of "this isn't a one-way, I'm screwed if something goes wrong" journey It wouldn't be a good idea to believe that though. Flutter website are just canvas paintings, and have nothing to do with the web. You can't add new html or js to it easily. can't make much use of new improvements in the web world. Most importantly, if you are running a business, flutter web isn't really accessible, so please don't use it for any non internal tools
  - kiratp 6y ago
    Or internal tools. Internal tools should not exclude people needing accessibility features.
RivieraKid 6y ago
I've been using Flutter in the last few months and agree. It's the best multi-platform solution for mobile, although it still doesn't match native behavior and performance, it only gets close. On the web it's DOA for most use cases - it's just a canvas, so scrolling, text selection, shadow rendering, etc. is custom, doesn't feel native and must be downloaded and compiled. It can have a future on desktop. One "cultural" obstacle is that the de facto default widget system is Material, which is simply a wrong approach to desktop UI.
- muth02446 6y ago
  I wish the dart/flutter team would focus on improving dart for web (e.g. by updating/fixing the JS bindings) instead of chasing flutter for web which seems like a long shot and rather hacky (referring to using the canvas for rendering content)
  - vesinisa 6y ago
    > using the canvas for rendering content This sounds like Flash all over again. Let me guess - no native text select, copy & paste supported? Scrolling is "wrong" in a subtle way?
    - spiderfarmer 6y ago
      Tie it in with AMP and you have the webdev cocktail from hell.
    - timsneath 6y ago
      We haven't reached perfection yet (that's why we're still in beta), but our goal is to be _very_ different to Flash in these kinds of areas. Here's an example of text fields: https://gallery.flutter.dev/#/demo/text-field https://gallery.flutter.dev/#/demo/text-field Right-click and you have access to the browser context menu; choose Inspect and you can see a <textarea> or <input> control.
      - sciurus 6y ago
blandflakes 6y ago
Dart actually has a lot of characteristics that make it appealing for a lot of the areas I'd have (begrudgingly) used Go - command-line tools or local utilities. It "can" be scripted, but also AOT compiles, has a saneish type system with generics, and doesn't have pointers to deal with. It's hard for me to want to use it on the web, but I keep watching it and wishing good things for it.
- vetinari 6y ago
  > command-line tools or local utilities. FFI is quite a PITA, though. Soomer or later you will have to interface some platform libraries, and Dart doesn't make that easy.
  - jamil7 6y ago
    > FFI is quite a PITA This is what made me nope out of it last time I experimented with a Flutter module in my app. I'm still watching it closely though as it could be a great fit for other projects.
    - kjksf 6y ago
      This might be outdated opinion (hard to tell without OP explaining what he finds "a PITA"). dart:ffi (https://dart.dev/guides/libraries/c-interop https://dart.dev/guides/libraries/c-interop) is a recent addition to Dart and from where I stand it's a decent FFI system. Maybe not as good as PInvoke in C# or ffi in luajit but better than, say, jni in Java (and any other FFI system that requires you to write glue code in C i.e. python, ruby, nodejs).
      - malkia 6y ago
        good thing to have in an FFI system is ability from one language to call another from callback, and back and forth (if it need to). I believe Dart allows for that. That to be said, stack walking is going to be painful to decode (probably), best I've seen is C#/C++ on Windows - where it flows naturally from one to another.
kllrnohj 6y ago
My experience with Flutter was that making the UI itself was pretty great. But making the rest of the app sucked. FFI support is bad. Platform channels are miserable. Doing it all in Dart is awful because there's no cheap concurrency - it's the same multi-heap with expensive "IPC" shittiness that you get with webworkers, but way less justified since you're nearly always on platforms with native threads. It's a huge pain to try and migrate piecemeal too, so if you have an existing app/codebase you're looking at a re-write. UI performance was fine (not any better than native though), but RAM usage was pretty bad, a lot higher than native. Really fantastic iteration workflow, though.
- xster 6y ago
  > Platform channels are miserable ya, I hear you. It's a very common annoyance. We've been adding some support in the form of https://pub.dev/packages/pigeon https://pub.dev/packages/pigeon to make the interop calls and data class passing more "direct". disclosure: in the Flutter team
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
What I found ironical with flutter was, besides everything being a 'widget' in flutter it doesn't actually support creation of android widgets or iOS widgets[1]. And that I'm worried that Google might just pull the plug as I feel the community is not in the position to continue development without Google's involvement unlike React Native. Also, I'm not entirely sure about the future of Dart language now that we have TypeScript. Overall I feel flutter to be a risky investment, I personally would rather develop PWA in-spite of Apple's explicit hurdles(which I think may change after couple of anti-trust litigations). [1]https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/26134 https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/26134
biolurker1 6y ago
And except for windows..

mikece 6y ago

Flutter's ability to "compile to web" was something that confused me at first as well, but on second thought it's genius. It makes it easier to ease managers into selecting Flutter since deployments and updates are done via a web browser. If that works for them then maybe there's never a need to go fully native though that option exists if they want to -- and the ability to go back to compiling for web gives managers a sense of "this isn't a one-way, I'm screwed if something goes wrong" journey.

anonms-coward 6y ago
> and the ability to go back to compiling for web gives managers a sense of "this isn't a one-way, I'm screwed if something goes wrong" journey It wouldn't be a good idea to believe that though. Flutter website are just canvas paintings, and have nothing to do with the web. You can't add new html or js to it easily. can't make much use of new improvements in the web world. Most importantly, if you are running a business, flutter web isn't really accessible, so please don't use it for any non internal tools
- kiratp 6y ago
  Or internal tools. Internal tools should not exclude people needing accessibility features.

RivieraKid 6y ago

I've been using Flutter in the last few months and agree. It's the best multi-platform solution for mobile, although it still doesn't match native behavior and performance, it only gets close. On the web it's DOA for most use cases - it's just a canvas, so scrolling, text selection, shadow rendering, etc. is custom, doesn't feel native and must be downloaded and compiled. It can have a future on desktop. One "cultural" obstacle is that the de facto default widget system is Material, which is simply a wrong approach to desktop UI.

muth02446 6y ago
I wish the dart/flutter team would focus on improving dart for web (e.g. by updating/fixing the JS bindings) instead of chasing flutter for web which seems like a long shot and rather hacky (referring to using the canvas for rendering content)
- vesinisa 6y ago
  > using the canvas for rendering content This sounds like Flash all over again. Let me guess - no native text select, copy & paste supported? Scrolling is "wrong" in a subtle way?
  - spiderfarmer 6y ago
    Tie it in with AMP and you have the webdev cocktail from hell.
  - timsneath 6y ago
    We haven't reached perfection yet (that's why we're still in beta), but our goal is to be _very_ different to Flash in these kinds of areas. Here's an example of text fields: https://gallery.flutter.dev/#/demo/text-field https://gallery.flutter.dev/#/demo/text-field Right-click and you have access to the browser context menu; choose Inspect and you can see a <textarea> or <input> control.
    - sciurus 6y ago

blandflakes 6y ago

Dart actually has a lot of characteristics that make it appealing for a lot of the areas I'd have (begrudgingly) used Go - command-line tools or local utilities. It "can" be scripted, but also AOT compiles, has a saneish type system with generics, and doesn't have pointers to deal with. It's hard for me to want to use it on the web, but I keep watching it and wishing good things for it.

vetinari 6y ago
> command-line tools or local utilities. FFI is quite a PITA, though. Soomer or later you will have to interface some platform libraries, and Dart doesn't make that easy.
- jamil7 6y ago
  > FFI is quite a PITA This is what made me nope out of it last time I experimented with a Flutter module in my app. I'm still watching it closely though as it could be a great fit for other projects.
  - kjksf 6y ago
    This might be outdated opinion (hard to tell without OP explaining what he finds "a PITA"). dart:ffi (https://dart.dev/guides/libraries/c-interop https://dart.dev/guides/libraries/c-interop) is a recent addition to Dart and from where I stand it's a decent FFI system. Maybe not as good as PInvoke in C# or ffi in luajit but better than, say, jni in Java (and any other FFI system that requires you to write glue code in C i.e. python, ruby, nodejs).
    - malkia 6y ago
      good thing to have in an FFI system is ability from one language to call another from callback, and back and forth (if it need to). I believe Dart allows for that. That to be said, stack walking is going to be painful to decode (probably), best I've seen is C#/C++ on Windows - where it flows naturally from one to another.

kllrnohj 6y ago

My experience with Flutter was that making the UI itself was pretty great. But making the rest of the app sucked. FFI support is bad. Platform channels are miserable. Doing it all in Dart is awful because there's no cheap concurrency - it's the same multi-heap with expensive "IPC" shittiness that you get with webworkers, but way less justified since you're nearly always on platforms with native threads. It's a huge pain to try and migrate piecemeal too, so if you have an existing app/codebase you're looking at a re-write. UI performance was fine (not any better than native though), but RAM usage was pretty bad, a lot higher than native. Really fantastic iteration workflow, though.

xster 6y ago
> Platform channels are miserable ya, I hear you. It's a very common annoyance. We've been adding some support in the form of https://pub.dev/packages/pigeon https://pub.dev/packages/pigeon to make the interop calls and data class passing more "direct". disclosure: in the Flutter team

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

What I found ironical with flutter was, besides everything being a 'widget' in flutter it doesn't actually support creation of android widgets or iOS widgets[1]. And that I'm worried that Google might just pull the plug as I feel the community is not in the position to continue development without Google's involvement unlike React Native. Also, I'm not entirely sure about the future of Dart language now that we have TypeScript. Overall I feel flutter to be a risky investment, I personally would rather develop PWA in-spite of Apple's explicit hurdles(which I think may change after couple of anti-trust litigations). [1]https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/26134 https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/26134

biolurker1 6y ago

And except for windows..