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The "temporary" fix is to allow developers to disable the cursor animation, i.e deviate from the native look & feel. After almost four years of saddling every

The "temporary" fix is to allow developers to disable the cursor animation, i.e deviate from the native look & feel. After almost four years of saddling every Flutter app that uses text input with anywhere between 5% and 20% CPU usage, this is what they have come up with. What this tells me is that it is neither possible nor beneficial to imitate native UI toolkits using a completely different technology stack. It's simply the wrong architecture.

satvikpendem 3y ago
Well, I guess there's no free lunch after all. At least it's better than Electron in that it's compiled code, and that it works on 6 different OSes.
- fauigerzigerk 3y ago
  I disagree. Web technologies are highly optimised for what they do (i.e text field uses 0% of CPU), run compiled code on all platforms and don't waste resources on chasing this unachievable and pointless native fetish. I don't understand your position. You're saying (correctly I think) that most users don't care about native. But then you turn around and choose an immature technology that spends a significant share of its budget on trying and failing to imitate native. The bug I cited betrays the priorities of the project. They chose to prioritise chasing "native" over fixing a critical bug for many years. Also, look at the large amount of investment going into web technologies - WebAssembly, WebGPU and many others. Even much criticised Apple is putting in a lot of work. I don't think the completely isolated Flutter/Dart team will ever be able to compete.
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    And how are those web technologies going for the bloat of Electron? There is no free lunch. Flutter binaries and runtime are orders of magnitude smaller and faster than web technologies. True, they shouldn't be chasing native, but it's still better than what we have currently with trying to cover 6 OS with web technologies.
    - fauigerzigerk 3y ago
      Not sure why you keep harping on Electron. It's not even available on mobile and choosing to distribute an entire browser engine with every single app is not the same thing as choosing web technologies in general. The Dart runtime isn't any faster than V8 either.
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        My point is that web technologies are quite poor for building multi-platform apps, something which Flutter excels at, even as it has its own issues. I consider those a worthwhile trade-off. I don't understand the points you're making, first you talk about battery drain, fair, then you talk about native, but it seems like you're missing the fundamental benefit of why some devs choose Flutter, which is that it works everywhere you need it to, and fairly fast, too. People use Electron for this generally, so that is why I brought it up, and I am saying that Flutter is a better alternative to Electron and other web technologies, and I am not sure exactly what you mean by web technologies, but I colloquially understand that to mean HTML, CSS, and Javascript. They are good at things like text rendering at 0% CPU precisely because they've been honed over decades, something which Flutter has not yet been able to. The compiled code from Dart is faster than V8, even simply by virtue of being AOT compiled instead of JITed, not sure where you saw that it wasn't any faster. Also, web technologies do not run compiled code on every platform, they don't run compiled code on any platform, I'm also unsure of where you're making that claim from, unless you're talking about WASM which is still a ways away, and something that Flutter leverages too already (see their work on pushing WASM GC as well as their experimental build of Flutter Web with WASM GC), so it's not unique to web technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
        iudqnolq 3y ago
        It's incorrect to say AOT is always faster than JIT (without profile guided optimization). And it's reasonable to call jit-eligible code sometimes compiled.
        3y ago
zigzag312 3y ago
> What this tells me is that it is neither possible nor beneficial to imitate native UI toolkits using a completely different technology stack. It's simply the wrong architecture. IMHO, UI toolkits based on low level technology stack are the future. It just that they are massive undertaking. It's not impossible to implement cursor animation with low CPU usage.

satvikpendem 3y ago

Well, I guess there's no free lunch after all. At least it's better than Electron in that it's compiled code, and that it works on 6 different OSes.

fauigerzigerk 3y ago
I disagree. Web technologies are highly optimised for what they do (i.e text field uses 0% of CPU), run compiled code on all platforms and don't waste resources on chasing this unachievable and pointless native fetish. I don't understand your position. You're saying (correctly I think) that most users don't care about native. But then you turn around and choose an immature technology that spends a significant share of its budget on trying and failing to imitate native. The bug I cited betrays the priorities of the project. They chose to prioritise chasing "native" over fixing a critical bug for many years. Also, look at the large amount of investment going into web technologies - WebAssembly, WebGPU and many others. Even much criticised Apple is putting in a lot of work. I don't think the completely isolated Flutter/Dart team will ever be able to compete.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  And how are those web technologies going for the bloat of Electron? There is no free lunch. Flutter binaries and runtime are orders of magnitude smaller and faster than web technologies. True, they shouldn't be chasing native, but it's still better than what we have currently with trying to cover 6 OS with web technologies.
  - fauigerzigerk 3y ago
    Not sure why you keep harping on Electron. It's not even available on mobile and choosing to distribute an entire browser engine with every single app is not the same thing as choosing web technologies in general. The Dart runtime isn't any faster than V8 either.
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      My point is that web technologies are quite poor for building multi-platform apps, something which Flutter excels at, even as it has its own issues. I consider those a worthwhile trade-off. I don't understand the points you're making, first you talk about battery drain, fair, then you talk about native, but it seems like you're missing the fundamental benefit of why some devs choose Flutter, which is that it works everywhere you need it to, and fairly fast, too. People use Electron for this generally, so that is why I brought it up, and I am saying that Flutter is a better alternative to Electron and other web technologies, and I am not sure exactly what you mean by web technologies, but I colloquially understand that to mean HTML, CSS, and Javascript. They are good at things like text rendering at 0% CPU precisely because they've been honed over decades, something which Flutter has not yet been able to. The compiled code from Dart is faster than V8, even simply by virtue of being AOT compiled instead of JITed, not sure where you saw that it wasn't any faster. Also, web technologies do not run compiled code on every platform, they don't run compiled code on any platform, I'm also unsure of where you're making that claim from, unless you're talking about WASM which is still a ways away, and something that Flutter leverages too already (see their work on pushing WASM GC as well as their experimental build of Flutter Web with WASM GC), so it's not unique to web technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
      - iudqnolq 3y ago
        It's incorrect to say AOT is always faster than JIT (without profile guided optimization). And it's reasonable to call jit-eligible code sometimes compiled.
        3y ago

zigzag312 3y ago

> What this tells me is that it is neither possible nor beneficial to imitate native UI toolkits using a completely different technology stack. It's simply the wrong architecture. IMHO, UI toolkits based on low level technology stack are the future. It just that they are massive undertaking. It's not impossible to implement cursor animation with low CPU usage.