A few learnings from GDG's NYC DevFest in which Faisal Abid gave us thoughts and tips on writing Flutter aps. [1]

Flutter squashes single-platform bugs.

Surprisingly, perhaps due to the easy GUI SIM-previewing capabilities, Mr. Abid [2] said that he never finds bugs that are present only on Android or only on iOS. An important logical corollary is that there is twice the chance of quickly finding a bug, since it will appear in both renderings.

Possibly supporting my corollary is that [rumor has it] Google internal teams claim they code apps 2-3x faster with Flutter, eg for AdWords, AdSense.

Dart is painless and helpful.

Watching the live-coding debugging was eye-openingly fast. Having code instead of yaml/xml/etc like Xamarin GUI features is my choice. Similarly, I like Chef/Ansible/Salt over Puppet's configuration for that reason. Why learn new config languages when languages already exist? Yes, it gives much power that can be abused, but it also gives great power for good.

Flutter is maturing - Beta is rumored for 2018-01.

The upcoming Dart conference in LA, CA [3] may very well release Flutter as Beta, ie one tick up towards production from its current Alpha designation. Already, Mr. Abid says that the API is stable enough to code against, in contrast to last year.

Google is giving Flutter money - so it might be here to stay a while.

In the past, Google has created alot of great projects and then summarily dropped them. In this case, they are backing the project with non-trivial resources. For example, they hired a likely quite expensive VIP from Microsoft [4]. Here's what he has to say: "I’m writing to tell you that I think Flutter is ‘the real deal’. .... They have hit a sweet spot of productivity and power, and have the momentum and backing to be successful. The ability to write an app that runs on both iOS and Android, with one code base, without compromise, using a highly productive language and set of libraries — it’s a compelling value proposition. In short, Flutter shows tremendous potential, and I’m thrilled to be joining the team as we drive forward towards launch. To Microsoft, thank you again for all you’ve taught me. To Google, hello! Tim Sneath"

Count me convinced.

My main goal in attending the flutter GDG seminar was to learn how 'real' it is for use now by someone like me. I have no experience writing apps, but I have ideas. I wouldn't want to start something whose technology will die in a couple of years.

It makes great business sense for me that Google puts alot of its weight behind this. Devs have been wanting cross-app tools for years, and whichever company wins this market will be hearted by devs worldwide.

Anne

URLS
[0] Flutter tutorial https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/flutter/index.html

[1] Agenda page https://devfestnyc.com/schedule/day1 ; Flutter workshop slack channel https://devfestnyc.slack.com/messages/C89NK94EA/

[2] Faisal Abid's bio https://developers.google.com/experts/people/faisal-abid

[3] https://events.dartlang.org/2018/dartconf/

[4] https://medium.com/@timsneath/new-beginnings-google-bf849766a497

[meta] date: 2017-12-03Sun.14:31EST
description: Do not stop. Jump into flutter android/ios app dev now.