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Pretty sure I'm the only person on this thread who loves flutter. We use flutter web and Firebase for our hobbyist project, and the results have been simply ama

Pretty sure I'm the only person on this thread who loves flutter. We use flutter web and Firebase for our hobbyist project, and the results have been simply amazing. Dart makes Typescript look like a joke. The build system alone makes flutter better than React Native ! I'm confident in being able to build any CRUD app in dart Edit, in fact how many of you have actually built a project in flutter .I can't believe anyone would want to go back to react native after trying it

plorkyeran 6y ago
All of the complaints about flutter I see here are based on people using apps built with flutter, and not about the development experience. "Have you actually build a project in flutter?" is a total non-sequitor response to complaints about how even the official demo is miserable to use.
- offtop5 6y ago
  Would you not buy a screwdriver because some people with that screwdriver don't build chairs correctly ? Like with Unity, the power of cross-platform development leads many to just assume apps work across platforms automatically. This is absolutely not the case, you need to properly QA any code you write and code it to accommodate each platform's quirks.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    But these are the official demos. I would not buy a screwdriver if a salesperson walked up to me, said "look how great this screwdriver is" and then the chair they were holding as an example immediately fell apart in their hands. There's a difference between a dev community building apps that perform badly and the actual platform advocates showing off apps that can't perform.
    - gagege 6y ago
      Exactly! I always think of the official demos as "this is as good as it gets". Look at how Unreal Engine advertises. Beautiful! Will your game look like that? Probably not, but it potentially could! All the Flutter demos I've seen today are saying "Do you want your app to, at best, take a long time or even fail to load, feel like scrolling through molasses, break when you click a button, and spin text around at 25 fps like a 2005 Flash animation? Well, have we got a framework for you!"
stephenhuey 6y ago
You're not the only person. After using two decades of improvements to JavaScript, Dart comes out swinging and wins without a contest. I don't want to spend all my time playing with build systems and and Flutter just works, plus even though JS is better these days, Dart in IntelliJ (Android Studio version) is so straightforward you can be productive from day one without having ever written Dart before.
LocalPCGuy 6y ago
We built our mobile app in Flutter, and it was pretty amazing. I would absolutely never suggest we create a web version of that mobile app and would strongly fight against it if someone else suggested it. I strongly disagree re: Dart vs. TS, but then, I was a JS dev before I worked with Dart/Flutter, so probably a bit biased. But I think that is a very subjective statement, not objective.
the_duke 6y ago
Can you share any example of Flutter Web that isn't a extremely basic Todo app, doesn't completely break regular browser UX and works without being slow as molasses? I haven't seen one. I like Flutter, but I don't think the Flutter Web design is very viable for production apps. It renders everything in canvas. Dart is already sluggish on native, and cross compiled to JS it's usually unusable. I think Flutter will be a good choice for mobile and Desktop soon-ish, but for web ... maybe in a few years. Maybe.
- gman83 6y ago
  https://rive.app/ https://rive.app/ is built with Flutter. I use it a lot works very well for me. It's a good example imo of the kind of website that Flutter is a good fit for.
- tomComb 6y ago
  I assume their medium term plan is to make the new wasm backend the default rather than continuing to rely on transpiling.
  - the_duke 6y ago
    The gallery already downloads a wasm file for me. Not sure if it's used. ps: for me the Gallery is extremely laggy in Firefox, but works decently well on Chrome. Maybe wasm is enabled on Chrome only.
aliyfarah 6y ago
>Dart makes Typescript look like a joke. Dart still does not even have union types, probably the best feature of TS. I would hold off on that claim for now..
- okamiueru 6y ago
  What is your main use case for type unions? I don't know typescript, but I haven't felt the dart language was not feature complete for all my uses. Is this something you cannot solve with a combination of abstract classes, and or/extension? https://dart.dev/guides/language/extension-methods https://dart.dev/guides/language/extension-methods
  - oblio 6y ago
    Let's say you get a JSON API that sometimes returns a list, sometimes returns an object. How do you model that in Dart?
    - okamiueru 6y ago
      You could create an abstract class for the base response, then implement this abstract class for the two cases one where it has a list member, and one where it contains the object. Then, using the return value with something like `if (response is listLike) { }` the IDE already knows that you are scoped to having only the list like properties, and you'd get the full help of the language. Something like that, I suppose.
      - oblio 6y ago
        Versus a sort of: my_type = my_list | my_object ? You can see why this is better :-)
        okamiueru 6y ago
        All I can say is that it is certainly neat :)
        6y ago
wootie512 6y ago
Yea I have used Flutter for hybrid apps and love the dev experience. The apps have come out great, and are smoother than my native Android work. I am really hopeful for it and am going to keep using on it for hybrid apps. I try to just tell devs to try it, then judge it. Because it does seem weird up front, but it is such a nice experience for devs and can make great mobile apps.
mdfk 6y ago
You are not the only one -- I've been developing in Flutter for the past couple of months and overall I'm very satisfied how easy it is to develop in it compared to native Android and iOS. Being native Android dev, I truly believe that there is a future in Flutter. Till now I was rejecting all the other cross-platform frameworks. Big part of it is thanks to the community which is providing all the handy packages to add some native stuff easier (such as permission, localization etc.) I agree with other comments that Flutter Web is not ready yet I've tried to build web version for wish list sharing based on Flutter and I was struggling, so in the end I've switched to Tailwind + Vue. Some issues I had was that website didn't behave like website. For example I couldn't select text with my mouse. It felt and behaved more like a mobile app through the browser. For mobile though it works (almost) perfectly, my example of the mobile iOS and android app build with Flutter: https://wishpy.com/ https://wishpy.com/ Although it loads a bit long at the beginning and I still need to figure out how to show images and icons without an uncomfortable glitch at the screen start.

plorkyeran 6y ago

All of the complaints about flutter I see here are based on people using apps built with flutter, and not about the development experience. "Have you actually build a project in flutter?" is a total non-sequitor response to complaints about how even the official demo is miserable to use.

offtop5 6y ago
Would you not buy a screwdriver because some people with that screwdriver don't build chairs correctly ? Like with Unity, the power of cross-platform development leads many to just assume apps work across platforms automatically. This is absolutely not the case, you need to properly QA any code you write and code it to accommodate each platform's quirks.
- danShumway 6y ago
  But these are the official demos. I would not buy a screwdriver if a salesperson walked up to me, said "look how great this screwdriver is" and then the chair they were holding as an example immediately fell apart in their hands. There's a difference between a dev community building apps that perform badly and the actual platform advocates showing off apps that can't perform.
  - gagege 6y ago
    Exactly! I always think of the official demos as "this is as good as it gets". Look at how Unreal Engine advertises. Beautiful! Will your game look like that? Probably not, but it potentially could! All the Flutter demos I've seen today are saying "Do you want your app to, at best, take a long time or even fail to load, feel like scrolling through molasses, break when you click a button, and spin text around at 25 fps like a 2005 Flash animation? Well, have we got a framework for you!"

stephenhuey 6y ago

You're not the only person. After using two decades of improvements to JavaScript, Dart comes out swinging and wins without a contest. I don't want to spend all my time playing with build systems and and Flutter just works, plus even though JS is better these days, Dart in IntelliJ (Android Studio version) is so straightforward you can be productive from day one without having ever written Dart before.

LocalPCGuy 6y ago

We built our mobile app in Flutter, and it was pretty amazing. I would absolutely never suggest we create a web version of that mobile app and would strongly fight against it if someone else suggested it. I strongly disagree re: Dart vs. TS, but then, I was a JS dev before I worked with Dart/Flutter, so probably a bit biased. But I think that is a very subjective statement, not objective.

the_duke 6y ago

Can you share any example of Flutter Web that isn't a extremely basic Todo app, doesn't completely break regular browser UX and works without being slow as molasses? I haven't seen one. I like Flutter, but I don't think the Flutter Web design is very viable for production apps. It renders everything in canvas. Dart is already sluggish on native, and cross compiled to JS it's usually unusable. I think Flutter will be a good choice for mobile and Desktop soon-ish, but for web ... maybe in a few years. Maybe.

gman83 6y ago
https://rive.app/ https://rive.app/ is built with Flutter. I use it a lot works very well for me. It's a good example imo of the kind of website that Flutter is a good fit for.
tomComb 6y ago
I assume their medium term plan is to make the new wasm backend the default rather than continuing to rely on transpiling.
- the_duke 6y ago
  The gallery already downloads a wasm file for me. Not sure if it's used. ps: for me the Gallery is extremely laggy in Firefox, but works decently well on Chrome. Maybe wasm is enabled on Chrome only.

aliyfarah 6y ago

>Dart makes Typescript look like a joke. Dart still does not even have union types, probably the best feature of TS. I would hold off on that claim for now..

okamiueru 6y ago
What is your main use case for type unions? I don't know typescript, but I haven't felt the dart language was not feature complete for all my uses. Is this something you cannot solve with a combination of abstract classes, and or/extension? https://dart.dev/guides/language/extension-methods https://dart.dev/guides/language/extension-methods
- oblio 6y ago
  Let's say you get a JSON API that sometimes returns a list, sometimes returns an object. How do you model that in Dart?
  - okamiueru 6y ago
    You could create an abstract class for the base response, then implement this abstract class for the two cases one where it has a list member, and one where it contains the object. Then, using the return value with something like `if (response is listLike) { }` the IDE already knows that you are scoped to having only the list like properties, and you'd get the full help of the language. Something like that, I suppose.
    - oblio 6y ago
      Versus a sort of: my_type = my_list | my_object ? You can see why this is better :-)
      - okamiueru 6y ago
        All I can say is that it is certainly neat :)
      - 6y ago

wootie512 6y ago

Yea I have used Flutter for hybrid apps and love the dev experience. The apps have come out great, and are smoother than my native Android work. I am really hopeful for it and am going to keep using on it for hybrid apps. I try to just tell devs to try it, then judge it. Because it does seem weird up front, but it is such a nice experience for devs and can make great mobile apps.

mdfk 6y ago

You are not the only one -- I've been developing in Flutter for the past couple of months and overall I'm very satisfied how easy it is to develop in it compared to native Android and iOS. Being native Android dev, I truly believe that there is a future in Flutter. Till now I was rejecting all the other cross-platform frameworks. Big part of it is thanks to the community which is providing all the handy packages to add some native stuff easier (such as permission, localization etc.) I agree with other comments that Flutter Web is not ready yet I've tried to build web version for wish list sharing based on Flutter and I was struggling, so in the end I've switched to Tailwind + Vue. Some issues I had was that website didn't behave like website. For example I couldn't select text with my mouse. It felt and behaved more like a mobile app through the browser. For mobile though it works (almost) perfectly, my example of the mobile iOS and android app build with Flutter: https://wishpy.com/ https://wishpy.com/ Although it loads a bit long at the beginning and I still need to figure out how to show images and icons without an uncomfortable glitch at the screen start.