[lta]

I thank the flutter team very very much for not using JS. We're already overflown with this stuff and a bit of variety and competition cannot hurt.

I personally dislike the whole JS ecosystem with a passion, and feel I'm not alone in this, so having an alternative is warmly welcome

[TobyTheDog123]

You're definitely not alone in this. One of the core reasons my team chose Flutter was the fact we would not have to spend much time setting up development environments and making sure we were always using the latest and greatest framework.

[cxr]

Odd thing to say, since you definitely have to set up a Flutter/Dart development environment—you don't just get it for free.

The only real way to escape this at all is to settle on the browser as your runtime, so there's a certain irony to what you're saying.

[TobyTheDog123]

I never said we didn't have to set up an environment, but that the environment is

1. Installing Flutter 2. flutter create 3. flutter run

Instead of installing/configuring/setting-up npm, typescript, eslint + rules, react + rules + types, prettier, react-native-web + rules + types, a rendering framework + rules + types, webpack, jest, and whatever else.

You do, basically, get it for free.

[cxr]

You have now transitioned from saying that you don't have to spend as much time to set up a development environment to saying that it is pretty much free, which is even odder still.

Again, it's definitely not free (or "basically" free, either). Step 1 negates that statement. You have to set up a development environment. It takes some non-zero amount of effort.

In contrast, the browser is already there. It already runs JS. You don't have to do anything to make that happen[1]. And in saying it takes nothing, that's not merely "basically" nothing; it's literally nothing.

> Instead of installing/configuring/setting-up npm [and a bunch of other crap]

What if I told you that while you're free to opt for doing any/all of those things, none of it is actually necessary, let alone a good idea? (Or point out that TypeScript is not even JS, for that matter?) That you're totally allowed to ignore the GitHub busyworkers and write actual (i.e. straightforward, standards-compliant) JS—in contrast to much of what's available for NPM/NodeJS, where you are most often encouraged to write "JS" that's incompatible with what's in the standard (and what the browser makers actually implement)?

1. <https://www.colbyrussell.com/2019/03/06/how-to-displace-java...>

[TobyTheDog123]

You seem to be suggesting that instead of installing a piece of software and running two commands is somehow inferior to writing untyped, unscalable javascript, hard refreshing the page each time to see your changes, loaded in yourself with script tags. This is the oddest argument of all (I can use that word too)

There is a reason people made these countless frameworks and solutions, but the benefit Flutter provides is it's an out-of-the-box fix, and yeah, installing some software and running two commands is an out-of-the-box fix.

In addition, the entirety of your argument just flat-out ignores the cross-platform aspect of it, targeting only the browser instead of mobile and desktop platforms as well.

> You have now transitioned from saying that you don't have to spend as much time to set up a development environment to saying that it is pretty much free, which is even odder still.

I truly don't understand this odd exercise in linguistic gymnastics, as these are both simultaneously and entirely true. You can resolve this yourself.

And yes, it's still (basically) free.

[cxr]

> You seem to be suggesting that instead of installing a piece of software and running two commands is somehow inferior to writing untyped, unscalable javascript, hard refreshing the page each time to see your changes, loaded in yourself with script tags.

Nope.

> This is the oddest argument of all (I can use that word too)

Oh, boy. That sounds bad. I guess it's a good thing that's an argument I'm not making it, then! (Also: I didn't use that word, FYI.)

[cxr]

> I personally dislike the whole JS ecosystem

Are you sure? The "whole JS ecosystem" you're aware of is likely to be the trendy (e.g. NodeJS+NPM) one*, which bears indicators at just about every turn that many/most of the folks working in it don't actually like the language themselves which results in lots of their energy being spent trying to fight with it which in turn produces the sorts of things that I'm guessing you like least. (For example: `package.json` is a tastemakers' invention and didn't appear anywhere in the spec.) This gives a skewed impression of what JS really even is; the dominant culture you see on GitHub is not the inevitable outcome of settling on a decision to standardize on JS.

(This isn't to say that the suggestion from the original comment you're replying to was a realistic/reasonable one in context.)

* in other words, not the "whole" JS ecosystem—you probably aren't looking at use of JS in, say, Gnome for example