It seems like this is a response to Ian "Hixie" Hickson (co-founder and tech lead of Flutter) leaving Google (but not leaving Flutter).
> Flutter is amazingly successful. It's already the leading mobile app development framework
Is this true? Over iOS native, Android native, React Native, or any other hybrid frameworks?
EDIT: numbers can tell different stories, but here's one at least against React Native (which I'm most interested in) in Flutter's favor: https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/02/21/why-flutter-is-the-mos...
Compared to the native tech the advantages are easy, you have a single codebase and UI for all the platforms. The native UI apis are also moving faster than Flutter in my opinion which makes Flutter lower maintenance as well on this area.
Compared to React Native, it's younger but more stable in my opinion, I don't want to deal with the js package churn rate and its bad testing story. I come back 6 months after to my flutter projects and after 2 hours I've upgraded everything, good luck with that on the js side.
If you care about Linux, Flutter is also a better choice than React Native in this scenario. React Native Gtk target is abandoned and the only realistic solution is to use an Electron wrapper (well it's not that native anymore isn't it)
The only downside to me is the web target which isn't that great, if you just want to use the web target as an app demo though, it's good enough.
I need to dedicate some time to try it.
But maybe they're right. I think it would be exceedingly hard to actually get real numbers on it anyway.
That is, he has first hand knowledge of Flutter's numbers and now that he works for a competitor, no motivation to inflate Flutter's stats.
Without getting into specifics (which I cannot share), Flutter is wildly successful in the market place and continues to grow YoY.
Being the ex director of a project means you will always have a reason to inflate the stats of that project, even if it is just for personal pride. I don't see how Hickson leaving Google means he doesn't still have part of his work life tied to the project regardless of employer.
> Without getting into specifics (which I cannot share), Flutter is wildly successful in the market place and continues to grow YoY.
That's cool, but this is just more of the same and more of what people seem surprised by. Numbers don't really matter unless they're visible and verifiable.
It's completely reasonable to continue to be skeptical of these claims without public numbers.
FWIW, I was surprised by the numbers myself but it's above my pay grade to share them publicly or discuss specifics.
I noticed a huge explosion of interest coming from third world countries prior to pandemic where money is tight.
China BigCos are adopting it.
If you go to hi-tech forums in India, lots of participation around flutter too.
That's two most populous nations in the world by large margin so you can keep looking for stats while they're chugging along :)
I would say in jest that it might be inversely correlated with success, but you also wouldn't want to work with, say, brainfuck.
> I hope that Google finally realizes what treasured assets they have here before it's too late. The clock is ticking.
Lowering the amount they're investing in Flutter would definitely be something that would disappoint the ones who believe in it strongly in-house and taking away key people would not inspire confidence. Interestingly none of the tweets ever mention Hickson as being important, which doesn't exactly speak to the source of the complaints being Hickson leaving, but rather a much more general lowering of investment in Flutter.
Hickson left Google for his own personal reasons. Not because Flutter is losing resources or that he was asked/assigned to work on something else.
Google has not lowered the amount resources dedicated to Flutter.
Ian started the Flutter project and it's hard to point to someone more important to Flutter's success than him.
He continues to work on Flutter as does the entire Flutter and Dart teams.
How do I know this? I've been working on Flutter (off and on, currently on) for seven years and was present when Ian announced his departure from Google (not Flutter).
What about the recent layoffs from the Flutter & Dart teams?