6 ms·

Flutter now has less stutter and plays nicer with the web

11 points by bertman 4y ago

hajile 4y ago
How long until ART just gets replaced outright with Flutter? Why was it easier to create an entirely new AOT, JIT, language, framework, etc than to fix Android instead?
rektide 4y ago
> Flutter is also learning to get along better with the web. Previously, Flutter developers had to choose whether they wanted web builds to render with the HTML renderer – producing a combination of HTML elements, CSS, Canvas elements, and SVG elements – or with the CanvasKit renderer, which produces graphics rather than readable source code. Its latest trick is element embedding, which lets Flutter content be added to any web page within a <div> element. It thus becomes part of the Document Object Model (DOM) and can be manipulated using CSS selectors and transformations. CanvasKit continues to terrify me as one of the utmost & highest existential threats to the web; instead of a hypertext engine it turns the web into a way to push pixels in people's faces, and the "canvas" mentality is an evil one. So I'm not sure whether to be happy about the news here or more distressed. CanvasKit can seemingly now interoperate alongside the html+svg native renderer, rather than be all consuming. On the one hand, yay, folks are less likely to completely wreck the experience & build some purely forsaken Flash like anti-web hell. But now it may be easier to mix little Flash-isms in, little daubs of anti-web, and god-forbid that give CanvasKit enough wiggle room to start making it in the door. > "Historically, people built for the web using the Document Object Model and HTML," explained Sneath. "And that was kind of the only way to build web apps. Now, over the last couple of years, between Canvas and WebAssembly, we've got these new technologies that enable a different class of web app experience. And so Flutter is unapologetically aiming at that next-generation class." Very sad to hear such a strongly anti-web, chest-thumping, perspective so prominently featured. This isn't a different class of web app; if you abandon the DOM you strip away user-agency, you blow up user-extensions, you wreck all the accessibility tools, then you've reduced the web to an app delivery platform. The "next-generation class" sounds like "we use the web as an app delivery platform". It sounds ok for developers, terrible for everyone else. > We're aiming at this next class of apps that look very much like the kinds of apps that Flutter is designed to solve – high graphical fidelity, offering pixel level of control over apps, having a canvas where you can draw and manage every part of the environment yourself." ® Canvas just isn't very web. It's not malleabe, it's not flexible. Every time this guy opens his mouth, it sounds like a worse betrayal of the web than last time, like a worse deal for users. This idea that user-agency is irrelevant, that hypermedia & exchange of information is not on the radar at all, the maximalist view that pushing pixels in people's faces is the only thing that matters continues to strike me as anti-human, as destructive & detrimental to humankind, for some very top-down-control oriented short-term wins. It's poisoning what we might build, to enable a very narrow clade of people to dictate to the world what we can ever do. Seeing the ethos so strongly said is a revolting thing to keep seeing, & it's said with such obvious lack of concern for the user. I really wish someone would reel these spokespeople in a bit, & have some balance, show some respect for user-agency, but the whole project feels like a bank against that, caring only for appdev. This is why I always thought webdev was so good: it permitted the whole world to also be stakeholders, where-as apps have always been too afraid to negotiate control. Anyhow... while Fuchsia is getting a lot of coverage as a part of the recent layouts, it's remarkable how wildly high-profile the efforts here in Flutter are. Building a new rendering engine, Flutter? Wow. The Skia rendering engine has, so far, been the one Google-ism in the stack that has been uncontested, untouched, uncompeted with, and now there's competition.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  I think I've seen your comments before about this topic, both here and perhaps on Reddit, but definitely on Slack (I think I talked with you there but it seems you were kicked out of that Slack group for whatever reason). While I do like the DOM, I don't think anyone is "viewing source" of web apps, and other platforms like desktop or mobile don't have that viewability either, not even to their detriment, so I feel that the canvas-ification of the web is nothing new or major, it simply will become as those other platforms are. The web as it exists today is not sacrosanct (but it seems like you think it so), if I can get better performance out of WASM, canvas and generally eschewing the DOM, I will use that solution. Your comments are much more vehement than they need to be, IMO, like "anti-human?" It's just a browser, chill out [0]. Seems some your other comments are similarly vehement and vitriolic beyond the proportion of the topic you talk about in each one. [0] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=author%3Arektide%20anti-human&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - rektide 4y ago
    Telling me to "chill out" and belittling my belief that the web is distinct does not demonstrate good faith on your part. I'd be happy to discuss why I think abandoning the web & hypertext as a common interchange is anti-human & beastly, but you don't seem interested in discussion or exploration. You've spent your time tearing me down & spreading casual sleight & disdain for the only successful online connected information space humanity has made. I don't feel like any kind of conversation here is possible. You have soundly refused to entertain the idea that perhaps the web has value or is distinct or improved over apps. You seem to only value apps & see nothing wrong with supplanting a rich connected standards-based information space with a bunch of pixels being shoved in people's faces. That's your perogative I guess, but if we aren't willing to see the other's values there's not much discussion really possible. I stand by my stance that throwing away interoperable information standards like html is anti-human. I continue to find the web to be far above everything else, far more adaptable & flexible than any other computing medium. You out of hand reject view source, but to me, it is an alive & powerful capability, that lets us explore, extend, & adapt these amazing online systems we run across. There is a huge wide ecosystem of web extensions, that people seem to care quite a lot about based on the many discussions happening here on HN, based on download count, and what Flutter is proposing is an extreme existential threat to that user-agency, which is powered 100% by the "view-source" capability you have given not the smallest iota of respect to, have said is worthless. I'm not sure how, given the evidence provided by the countless extensions people use and love, you could claim something so callous & make such belittling remarks. I've tutored a number of newcombers to computer science & programming via some web scripting, modifying the online experiences they were already having, by asking them for something about a site that annoys them, and then building a userscript to improve or address; it's a problem-oriented way to understand programming & the web medium. This has enormous value, is a pro-human engagement that the web shines at & makes possible; it's instantly gratifying to see we can work with the computer, work with what is, shape it. There is, for example, https://malleable.systems https://malleable.systems , dedicated to this virtue of modifyability. Where-as in apps the kind of cruel cold hard "pixel perfect precision" & top-down ownership-by-corporation is the anti-human basis most work is executed under. To me, this is a sucking void of value, a bleak sad world, far less than the interoperable places of information we ought have, and a massive step back. From your current stance, there doesn't seem to be any possibility you might be willing to consider any of the virtues I think are important. You've picked a very narrow set of values you will recognize, and disregarded outside principles & values. I'm not sure how we can converse about this & make progress, given that you won't permit nor acknowledge any of my values or beliefs, give no credence to web extensions nor systems with viewable source. I have at least recognized some of the expedience, the desires of app developers to have their control & speed; I just think it must be a complement to other things, & not total. Your views have totally rejected the web, for what feels to me like a largely egocentric set of values/priorities. I just wish this platform would not be on the web, if it has such savage abandon in disregarding the interoperable base values & virtues that have, so far, defined the web. Flutter is standing up to be the next anti-inter-operable Flash, it's own weird corporate-controlled antii-user penitentiary within the web, and that is for sure a horror & damaging. (I do not believe I have ever been on the slack? My password manager does not have any such logins nor do I recall joining.)

11 points by bertman 4y ago

How long until ART just gets replaced outright with Flutter? Why was it easier to create an entirely new AOT, JIT, language, framework, etc than to fix Android instead?

rektide 4y ago

> Flutter is also learning to get along better with the web. Previously, Flutter developers had to choose whether they wanted web builds to render with the HTML renderer – producing a combination of HTML elements, CSS, Canvas elements, and SVG elements – or with the CanvasKit renderer, which produces graphics rather than readable source code. Its latest trick is element embedding, which lets Flutter content be added to any web page within a <div> element. It thus becomes part of the Document Object Model (DOM) and can be manipulated using CSS selectors and transformations. CanvasKit continues to terrify me as one of the utmost & highest existential threats to the web; instead of a hypertext engine it turns the web into a way to push pixels in people's faces, and the "canvas" mentality is an evil one. So I'm not sure whether to be happy about the news here or more distressed. CanvasKit can seemingly now interoperate alongside the html+svg native renderer, rather than be all consuming. On the one hand, yay, folks are less likely to completely wreck the experience & build some purely forsaken Flash like anti-web hell. But now it may be easier to mix little Flash-isms in, little daubs of anti-web, and god-forbid that give CanvasKit enough wiggle room to start making it in the door. > "Historically, people built for the web using the Document Object Model and HTML," explained Sneath. "And that was kind of the only way to build web apps. Now, over the last couple of years, between Canvas and WebAssembly, we've got these new technologies that enable a different class of web app experience. And so Flutter is unapologetically aiming at that next-generation class." Very sad to hear such a strongly anti-web, chest-thumping, perspective so prominently featured. This isn't a different class of web app; if you abandon the DOM you strip away user-agency, you blow up user-extensions, you wreck all the accessibility tools, then you've reduced the web to an app delivery platform. The "next-generation class" sounds like "we use the web as an app delivery platform". It sounds ok for developers, terrible for everyone else. > We're aiming at this next class of apps that look very much like the kinds of apps that Flutter is designed to solve – high graphical fidelity, offering pixel level of control over apps, having a canvas where you can draw and manage every part of the environment yourself." ® Canvas just isn't very web. It's not malleabe, it's not flexible. Every time this guy opens his mouth, it sounds like a worse betrayal of the web than last time, like a worse deal for users. This idea that user-agency is irrelevant, that hypermedia & exchange of information is not on the radar at all, the maximalist view that pushing pixels in people's faces is the only thing that matters continues to strike me as anti-human, as destructive & detrimental to humankind, for some very top-down-control oriented short-term wins. It's poisoning what we might build, to enable a very narrow clade of people to dictate to the world what we can ever do. Seeing the ethos so strongly said is a revolting thing to keep seeing, & it's said with such obvious lack of concern for the user. I really wish someone would reel these spokespeople in a bit, & have some balance, show some respect for user-agency, but the whole project feels like a bank against that, caring only for appdev. This is why I always thought webdev was so good: it permitted the whole world to also be stakeholders, where-as apps have always been too afraid to negotiate control. Anyhow... while Fuchsia is getting a lot of coverage as a part of the recent layouts, it's remarkable how wildly high-profile the efforts here in Flutter are. Building a new rendering engine, Flutter? Wow. The Skia rendering engine has, so far, been the one Google-ism in the stack that has been uncontested, untouched, uncompeted with, and now there's competition.

satvikpendem 4y ago
I think I've seen your comments before about this topic, both here and perhaps on Reddit, but definitely on Slack (I think I talked with you there but it seems you were kicked out of that Slack group for whatever reason). While I do like the DOM, I don't think anyone is "viewing source" of web apps, and other platforms like desktop or mobile don't have that viewability either, not even to their detriment, so I feel that the canvas-ification of the web is nothing new or major, it simply will become as those other platforms are. The web as it exists today is not sacrosanct (but it seems like you think it so), if I can get better performance out of WASM, canvas and generally eschewing the DOM, I will use that solution. Your comments are much more vehement than they need to be, IMO, like "anti-human?" It's just a browser, chill out [0]. Seems some your other comments are similarly vehement and vitriolic beyond the proportion of the topic you talk about in each one. [0] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=author%3Arektide%20anti-human&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- rektide 4y ago
  Telling me to "chill out" and belittling my belief that the web is distinct does not demonstrate good faith on your part. I'd be happy to discuss why I think abandoning the web & hypertext as a common interchange is anti-human & beastly, but you don't seem interested in discussion or exploration. You've spent your time tearing me down & spreading casual sleight & disdain for the only successful online connected information space humanity has made. I don't feel like any kind of conversation here is possible. You have soundly refused to entertain the idea that perhaps the web has value or is distinct or improved over apps. You seem to only value apps & see nothing wrong with supplanting a rich connected standards-based information space with a bunch of pixels being shoved in people's faces. That's your perogative I guess, but if we aren't willing to see the other's values there's not much discussion really possible. I stand by my stance that throwing away interoperable information standards like html is anti-human. I continue to find the web to be far above everything else, far more adaptable & flexible than any other computing medium. You out of hand reject view source, but to me, it is an alive & powerful capability, that lets us explore, extend, & adapt these amazing online systems we run across. There is a huge wide ecosystem of web extensions, that people seem to care quite a lot about based on the many discussions happening here on HN, based on download count, and what Flutter is proposing is an extreme existential threat to that user-agency, which is powered 100% by the "view-source" capability you have given not the smallest iota of respect to, have said is worthless. I'm not sure how, given the evidence provided by the countless extensions people use and love, you could claim something so callous & make such belittling remarks. I've tutored a number of newcombers to computer science & programming via some web scripting, modifying the online experiences they were already having, by asking them for something about a site that annoys them, and then building a userscript to improve or address; it's a problem-oriented way to understand programming & the web medium. This has enormous value, is a pro-human engagement that the web shines at & makes possible; it's instantly gratifying to see we can work with the computer, work with what is, shape it. There is, for example, https://malleable.systems https://malleable.systems , dedicated to this virtue of modifyability. Where-as in apps the kind of cruel cold hard "pixel perfect precision" & top-down ownership-by-corporation is the anti-human basis most work is executed under. To me, this is a sucking void of value, a bleak sad world, far less than the interoperable places of information we ought have, and a massive step back. From your current stance, there doesn't seem to be any possibility you might be willing to consider any of the virtues I think are important. You've picked a very narrow set of values you will recognize, and disregarded outside principles & values. I'm not sure how we can converse about this & make progress, given that you won't permit nor acknowledge any of my values or beliefs, give no credence to web extensions nor systems with viewable source. I have at least recognized some of the expedience, the desires of app developers to have their control & speed; I just think it must be a complement to other things, & not total. Your views have totally rejected the web, for what feels to me like a largely egocentric set of values/priorities. I just wish this platform would not be on the web, if it has such savage abandon in disregarding the interoperable base values & virtues that have, so far, defined the web. Flutter is standing up to be the next anti-inter-operable Flash, it's own weird corporate-controlled antii-user penitentiary within the web, and that is for sure a horror & damaging. (I do not believe I have ever been on the slack? My password manager does not have any such logins nor do I recall joining.)