[svdev]

I had high hopes for flutter but gave up after a while. It feels like their design meetings were spent arguing about grammar and splitting hairs, rather than thinking about ergonomics and how people would use it.

In Flutter, everything is a nested pile of objects with too many APIs to keep track of. Take this example: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/master/examples/stoc...

Why do I need to care if something takes a `child: (single object)` argument or a `children: [LIST of objects]`?

Flutter would be better with JSX: JSX hides how the puzzle pieces fit together. I don't care if it takes a child or children; just make everything connect the same way.

React Native's Flexbox also beats how Flutter did things. Why do I need to memorize which objects take which styling arguments? You want to center items on the screen? Re-nest everything inside a Center object! You want a column or a row of elements? Use a Column/Row object!

For a framework that's trying to bill itself as a great tool for prototyping, it feels like I'm sifting through a mountain of minutiae. I was able to guess my way through a React Native app and be right 99% of the time. With flutter, my luckiest guess would lead me to an abstract base class... Then I'd have to dig around to figure out what the hell I need to use to make a view scrollable. Seriously:

https://github.com/flutter/flutter/blob/c6b0f833af9e431df1e6...

Why?

[tomatsu]

> Why do I need to care if something takes a `child: (single object)` argument or a `children: [LIST of objects]`?

The IDE tells you what's needed and the latest version of the plugin automatically adds a list literal and places the cursor inside it:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/flutter-dev/LXafJQqS...

Personally, I think it makes sense to differentiate between exactly one and zero or more.

> Why do I need to memorize which objects take which styling arguments?

The IDE should do that for you.

[mmjaa]

>The IDE should do that for you.

Fail. IDE dependence is an anti-pattern and a programmer-smell.

[tomatsu]

Either the IDE/editor is able to assist you or you have to consult the documentation regularly.

That's just how it is.

JS' standard library, for example, is really tiny but I haven't memorized all of it. If the editor can't clue me in, I have to check the docs.

[mmjaa]

Nothing wrong with doing any of it, as long as its a dependency you can manage while also maintaining productivity... but such is the life of a Javascript developer.

[gman83]

I mean, if you're using IntelliJ or Visual Studio Code it automatically completes which argument something takes, it's hardly like you need to go around digging for that stuff. Personally, I think it makes sense to differentiate between something which takes one child and something which takes an array of children.

[johnfn]

> Personally, I think it makes sense to differentiate between something which takes one child and something which takes an array of children.

Could you please explain this - it doesn't make sense to me.

To me it seems clearly and unambiguously true that a single child is not a special case vs multiple children, but rather just a list of children that is 1 long. I can't think of any cases where handling both as an array would possibly have you write worse code.

[gman83]

Take the Container class in Flutter, it can only take a single Widget as a child. Having to write a list of children that is 1 long every time I use a container doesn't make sense to me, and to me seems confusing as it will lead to people trying to add more items. I don't know, that's my opinion, maybe I'm wrong :)

[johnfn]

Hmm, perhaps it's me not understanding the flutter paradigm, but if something only accepted a single child, I would stop calling it a child and start calling it a more precise name. Like perhaps contents in the case of a container?

[sureshv]

Sounds like they took that from Android where IIRC a scrollview could only take one child. Coming from Win32 Android, back in the G1 days, always had its own idiosyncrasies.

[blikdak]

That's the first thing I thought too re JSX or something like that, it looks like they are trying to shoehorn Java and full OO into what is basically React, replacing JSX and json with a huge pile of different classes. Over-engineering and obfuscating in much the way GWT did back in the day. The web is the web, there is only the DOM guys, deal with it and move on.

[tomatsu]

> The web is the web, there is only the DOM guys, deal with it and move on.

Flutter doesn't use a WebView. There is no DOM.

That's why it's fast.