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Dart is extremely easy to pick up if you've written in any C style language. Someone in our team had a small Android TV app working in 2-3 days with WebSockets

by pier25 6y ago

Dart is extremely easy to pick up if you've written in any C style language. Someone in our team had a small Android TV app working in 2-3 days with WebSockets, web views, some animations, etc.

blacktriangle 6y ago
It's never about the language, most any language is easy to pick up. However picking up a whole new ecosystem with its associated dev tools, build tools, packaging, and different libraries is where the time consuming portion of new languages come in.
- H1Supreme 6y ago
  Exactly. When I scanned Dart's language spec, it looked just like any other C derived language. In terms of complexity, Flutter/Dart is no different than Android/Java. When I started writing Android apps, learning Java was the absolute easiest part of that process.
oblio 6y ago
Syntax, semantics, code organization and best practices, libraries, frameworks, debugging and debuggers, IDE support (preferably multiple IDEs for multiple platforms), LSP support, linters, profilers, disassemblers, dependency license checkers, dependency vulnerability scanners, package managers, package repository with support for private repos and proxying/mirroring, should I go on and on and on? Your toy app takes 2 days to create and then you (or worse, someone else) have to support the crummy Visual Basic/PHP/Javascript/Mongo/ColdFusion/insert easy to use crappy tech here, forever.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  > crappy tech What kind of an argument is this? Not wanting to learn all those things for multiple languages is valid. But "it would take a while" doesn't tell you anything about whether a language is crappy. The odds are pretty close to 50:50 that the language you already know is the crappier one.
  - oblio 6y ago
    My main point is that developers chase shiny things and "easy to use" is one of the shiniest things out there. Past a certain point, being usable in 2 clicks is a negative signal for overall tech quality. Most of the really solid techs need some extra configuration. The classic example of crappy tech is the DB tech that listens on 0.0.0.0 after installation, with no user + pass or admin/admin.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      > Past a certain point, being usable in 2 clicks is a negative signal for overall tech quality. Most of the really solid techs need some extra configuration. The classic example of crappy tech is the DB tech that listens on 0.0.0.0 after installation, with no user + pass or admin/admin. Yeah, but the post up there said 2-3 days. That's plenty of time to handle those important details that make a project non-instant.
  - danielscrubs 6y ago
    Here are some benchmarks: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/fastest/dart.html https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... The Dart implementation seems much slower than the NodeJs implementation and it doesn’t bring anything new to the table? It added null safety today. Anyone that knows if it has any feature beyond for example what Ocaml has?
    - mda 6y ago
      Uuh the benchmarks in this site is very misleading (for all languages). Do your own tests otherwise the numbers there are practically meaningless.
      - igouy 6y ago
        Yes, when others have not written the programs you would like to compare — write your own programs to compare. https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/why-measure-toy-benchmark-programs.html#reimplement https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... How programs are written does matter.
- mathgladiator 6y ago
  I think in the framework of choosing boring things, you are spot on. However, all innovation tends to be ten steps forward and eight steps back, so the way that I look at it is simple. For a given effort, are those two steps forward worth the total long term cost? Maybe, maybe not. Usually not, but... people are going to do silly things. I look at flutter as a quick way to bootstrap a simple CRUD app, but... for what? How does it improve on the web? Not 100% sure, but I do like the down chain investments that flutter supports like Skia. I'm a huge fan of canvas, but I recognize its limits for building apps. It's great for many things like games, and it is a 2D escape hatch. I'll admit that I get suckered into the lure of building a 2D canvas empire that is cross platform because it would be nice.
- pier25 6y ago
  The fact is that even considering all those points, Flutter+Dart is still much easier to learn than Swift+iOS and Kotlin+Android (even separately). And I'm not even considering Desktop.
  - EvilEy3 6y ago
    Sure, but you also get really powerful ecosystems with those languages. Which can't be said about Dart + Flutter, where most of those packages are amateur quality. > Desktop JetBrains Compose.
- fizdoonk 6y ago
  have you actually tried it? its ecosystem provides all of that
jamil7 6y ago
Yeah but it’s usefulness is really limited and just feels shoehorned into the project. Why couldn’t it have been Kotlin or TS? Something that mobile developers or web developers could jump into and keep a bunch of their existing tooling.
- distances 6y ago
  Then you would've needed to package a JVM or a JavaScript engine, making the app distribution a whole lotta different deal.
  - MongooseMan 6y ago
    Kotlin doesn't just run on the JVM - it can compile to native binaries with Kotlin Native. It compiles to WASM and JS too.
    - EvilEy3 6y ago
      At the time of Flutter development it couldn't do any of those things.
      - jamil7 6y ago
        Thats a good point, I tend to forget how long Flutter has been around.
- EvilEy3 6y ago
  JetBrains Compose.

by pier25 6y ago

Dart is extremely easy to pick up if you've written in any C style language. Someone in our team had a small Android TV app working in 2-3 days with WebSockets, web views, some animations, etc.

blacktriangle 6y ago

It's never about the language, most any language is easy to pick up. However picking up a whole new ecosystem with its associated dev tools, build tools, packaging, and different libraries is where the time consuming portion of new languages come in.

H1Supreme 6y ago
Exactly. When I scanned Dart's language spec, it looked just like any other C derived language. In terms of complexity, Flutter/Dart is no different than Android/Java. When I started writing Android apps, learning Java was the absolute easiest part of that process.

oblio 6y ago

Syntax, semantics, code organization and best practices, libraries, frameworks, debugging and debuggers, IDE support (preferably multiple IDEs for multiple platforms), LSP support, linters, profilers, disassemblers, dependency license checkers, dependency vulnerability scanners, package managers, package repository with support for private repos and proxying/mirroring, should I go on and on and on? Your toy app takes 2 days to create and then you (or worse, someone else) have to support the crummy Visual Basic/PHP/Javascript/Mongo/ColdFusion/insert easy to use crappy tech here, forever.

Dylan16807 6y ago
> crappy tech What kind of an argument is this? Not wanting to learn all those things for multiple languages is valid. But "it would take a while" doesn't tell you anything about whether a language is crappy. The odds are pretty close to 50:50 that the language you already know is the crappier one.
- oblio 6y ago
  My main point is that developers chase shiny things and "easy to use" is one of the shiniest things out there. Past a certain point, being usable in 2 clicks is a negative signal for overall tech quality. Most of the really solid techs need some extra configuration. The classic example of crappy tech is the DB tech that listens on 0.0.0.0 after installation, with no user + pass or admin/admin.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    > Past a certain point, being usable in 2 clicks is a negative signal for overall tech quality. Most of the really solid techs need some extra configuration. The classic example of crappy tech is the DB tech that listens on 0.0.0.0 after installation, with no user + pass or admin/admin. Yeah, but the post up there said 2-3 days. That's plenty of time to handle those important details that make a project non-instant.
- danielscrubs 6y ago
  Here are some benchmarks: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/fastest/dart.html https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... The Dart implementation seems much slower than the NodeJs implementation and it doesn’t bring anything new to the table? It added null safety today. Anyone that knows if it has any feature beyond for example what Ocaml has?
  - mda 6y ago
    Uuh the benchmarks in this site is very misleading (for all languages). Do your own tests otherwise the numbers there are practically meaningless.
    - igouy 6y ago
      Yes, when others have not written the programs you would like to compare — write your own programs to compare. https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/why-measure-toy-benchmark-programs.html#reimplement https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... How programs are written does matter.
mathgladiator 6y ago
I think in the framework of choosing boring things, you are spot on. However, all innovation tends to be ten steps forward and eight steps back, so the way that I look at it is simple. For a given effort, are those two steps forward worth the total long term cost? Maybe, maybe not. Usually not, but... people are going to do silly things. I look at flutter as a quick way to bootstrap a simple CRUD app, but... for what? How does it improve on the web? Not 100% sure, but I do like the down chain investments that flutter supports like Skia. I'm a huge fan of canvas, but I recognize its limits for building apps. It's great for many things like games, and it is a 2D escape hatch. I'll admit that I get suckered into the lure of building a 2D canvas empire that is cross platform because it would be nice.
pier25 6y ago
The fact is that even considering all those points, Flutter+Dart is still much easier to learn than Swift+iOS and Kotlin+Android (even separately). And I'm not even considering Desktop.
- EvilEy3 6y ago
  Sure, but you also get really powerful ecosystems with those languages. Which can't be said about Dart + Flutter, where most of those packages are amateur quality. > Desktop JetBrains Compose.
fizdoonk 6y ago
have you actually tried it? its ecosystem provides all of that

jamil7 6y ago

Yeah but it’s usefulness is really limited and just feels shoehorned into the project. Why couldn’t it have been Kotlin or TS? Something that mobile developers or web developers could jump into and keep a bunch of their existing tooling.

distances 6y ago
Then you would've needed to package a JVM or a JavaScript engine, making the app distribution a whole lotta different deal.
- MongooseMan 6y ago
  Kotlin doesn't just run on the JVM - it can compile to native binaries with Kotlin Native. It compiles to WASM and JS too.
  - EvilEy3 6y ago
    At the time of Flutter development it couldn't do any of those things.
    - jamil7 6y ago
      Thats a good point, I tend to forget how long Flutter has been around.
EvilEy3 6y ago
JetBrains Compose.