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Learning Flutter - Part 2 - Disappointment

rhymes on October 19, 2018

This is a series of articles about Flutter and the little time I am dedicating to grasp it, you can find part 1 here. The online Flutter documenta...
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Halafu

Flutter may end up being a flop because of such issues which may appear to be "trivial" yet they are not. Google is pushing Flutter so hard yet there is an unnecessary "high" barrier of entry for something that should be pretty easy to master. I wish they would fix the docs which is horrible, have sample codes and walkthroughs. At the moment the only thing everybody seems to get out of flutter is that "everything is a widget" which is now almost a joke.

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virgil

Flutter is getting pushed by google because of the upcoming OS that is built in Dart and Flutter. This OS will replace android at some point. The project is called Google Fuchsia. Since everything will be moving there it will be easy for all the apps to move if they were build in flutter. :)

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rhymes

Thank you Halafu! I'm glad for your answer as well. The doc is really bad, but I hope it will get better before version 1.0. Vue.js has one of the best docs out there, they can copy that :-D

Flutter is a really good idea but they should help lowering the barrier given that everything is new.

At the moment the only thing everybody seems to get out of flutter is that "everything is a widget" which is now almost a joke.

Now that I think about it this thing is so "Google". IIRC GMail initially written with a Java framework, GWT that generated JavaScript code. I'm not surprised they came up with a tool in which everything is a widget.

It's the perfect condition for code generators (which if Flutter takes on, someone will definitely create), it's just that right now is a little too verbose.

I thought about purchasing Maximilian Schwarzmüller's Learn Flutter & Dart to Build iOS & Android Apps course on Udemy because I loved his Vue course but it's 200€ and I'm not that committed right now...

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Emmanuel Okiche

I guess your disappointment with Flutter was definitely from the course you took.
I took the same course and it was useless to me. Almost got me disappointed until i watched MtechViral's Whatsapp clone tutorial.
After that, i decided to recreate some small apps i already built with React which led me to start posting Flutter tutorials on my YouTube channel

Learning Flutter came by accident after being frustrated to setup a basic React Native app. RN had issues with its 0.56.0 version and nobody was doing nothing about it. I decided to reluctantly try out Flutter and it has been an amazing journey so far.
I hope you get to give it one more try with a fresh look.
Just rhyme to it rhyme ;)

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rhymes

Thank you Emmanuel! It does brighten my outlook. I'll pick it up again when I'll need it, I still believe in the idea behind it!

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Jithesh. KT

I started flutter with great interest and ended up being not able to simply parse a json array I received form a URL and bind it in to front end. Process was really annoying especially for a person like me who have worked with react native in the past. I did the app which I thought I will do in flutter is ended up using react native in two says. Still love to try flutter. Not sure when.

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rhymes

I think I'll keep, albeit slowly, learning it. I just need to find the right content and approach.

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Ahmed Alaa • Edited

Can't agree more about the course, I have started it and never completed, instead I have took the path of reading more articles and learning from open source projects, which I learned from it a lot more than the course.

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rhymes

Thanks for your comment, glad I'm not the only one with this impression.

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Danny Tuppeny

I found a nice IDE addition for Android Studio that is totally missing from Flutter's extension for Visual Studio Code

FWIW, those refactors exist in VS Code too - just click the Lightbulb icons or press Cmd+. (or Ctrl+. for Win/Linux).

If you've found somewhere that this doesn't work in VS Code but does in Android Studio/IntelliJ, please open an issue and I will investigate.

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rhymes

Thanks Danny! I totally missed that. I really like Dart Code and would prefer using VS Code over Android Studio.

I'll give it a try the next time. I also redacted the article :-)

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Vince Ramces Oliveros

I'm not bothered at ";". I do know python/ruby doesnt need ";", Javascript and kotlin have optional ";". Dart/Java/C++/C require ";". the udacity course for flutter is like trash for some reason. Its better to be familiar when you're building your own app as you progress. Look up to any tutorials on youtube(udemy might be good). It helped me a lot unlike the documentation.

I've only read the documentation for the source code implementation.(Source code is also available in the tooling. Just hover the syntax and it will highlight the code and example).

Also,

DON'T USE FLUTTER FOR BUILDING APPS THAT REQUIRES NATIVE APIS LIKE IoT, NOTIFICATION, BLUETOOTH.

You'll end up learning Kotlin/Java and Swift/Objective C in the end(Same as any cross-platform like RN and NativeScript). Flutter only gives UI FRAMEWORK and Platform Channels(this communicates to android/ios apis).

Flutter is good and worth to try, Its not a Toy for building apps and abandon it. Many companies have invested and succeed. Fuchsia uses Flutter too(next 5 years).

Flutter hits 1.0 in December 2018.

Every framework has its ups and downs. But using it that fits for the job matters most.

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rhymes

It helped me a lot unlike the documentation.

Thanks!

(Source code is also available in the tooling. Just hover the syntax and it will highlight the code and example).

Noticed, thank you. That's always helpful.

Flutter is good and worth to try, Its not a Toy for building apps and abandon it. Many companies have invested and succeed. Fuchsia uses Flutter too(next 5 years).

Yes I agree. I think it's a solid tech, they just need to improve the documentation. Dart and Skia are super fast!

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Jermaine

Glad I'm not the only one who did not fully enjoy the Udacity course. A lot of things simply went unexplained.

Note to future self: learn Dart before Flutter.

I most certainly agree. Materials from Nick Canning and Andrea Bizzoto helped me grasp the concepts quickly. It's been my goto materials while working on an app myself.

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rhymes

Thank you for the links!