Flutter doesn't use any of that, you just code and thats pretty much it. No XML or anything, and you can use VSCode which is a lot lighter than android studio.
Yes, tremendously so. It's still XML for basic UI, but Kotlin is the primary language of choice these days, Android Studio is a solidly world-class IDE, and the emulator is very fast.
> but I wonder by how much and if Flutter's workflow skirts any of these issues altogether.
Flutter uses the regular Android emulator, and although you have more editor choice the recommended was to just use a plugin for Android Studio.
It works fine.
Kotlin, swift, rust, etc are more fun languages for me but Flutter is productive enough with Dart I am not about to ditch if becasue the language is decent at best.
Have you implemented any layouts using the Constraint Layout? Normally, I'd agree with you, but I find the Constraint Layout pretty great for designing UI's. The "glued together" approach makes responsiveness a breeze, imo.
UI development in Android is such a pain and I feel like I spend most of my time trying to get the UI just right. With Flutter I am building UI so much faster and getting to focus on the actual logic of the code. Dart was fine, I learned it as I went. I enjoy it more than Javascript but like Kotlin much more.
The app I built with Flutter was pretty straightforward, so I haven't stretched the platforms capabilities, but hoping I get the chance to.