Serious question concerning how much of a bubble I am in:

> 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...

I was also very surprised at that line and I was wondering if I was the one who was out of touch or the Google team were. I haven't really looked into mobile development for a few years so it could very well be the case, but it stood out to me as unlikely considering the relative impopularity of Dart and the (to my estimation) very low hype profile of Flutter where developers hang out.

But maybe they're right. I think it would be exceedingly hard to actually get real numbers on it anyway.

Tim was a director on Flutter until a few months ago and now works at Apple.

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.

> Tim was a director on Flutter until a few months ago and now works at Apple. > > 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.

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.

Sure, personal pride might cause someone to continue to inflate stats even after leaving a project. I can't speak for Tim or his motives here.

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.

Might be because Flutter is very popular outside your bubble.

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 guess it depends on how you measure popularity. If we’re counting new apps published on App/Play Store? Perhaps, even if still quite surprising . By user numbers? Completely unbelievable.

"Percentage of Stack Overflow questions that month" is not a good measurement for a tool's popularity or a measure of its use.

Very much agree.

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 would be very surprised if it's not Ionic or maybe React Native.

In terms of numbers I don't know but I personally chose it from my apps and to me it's the best framework out there at the moment.

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.

do you have any opinions on kotlin multiplatform? Afaik they want to roll out even the compose multiplatform this year

I haven't tried it yet, I'm a bit afraid on the ios side since they label it "alpha"

I need to dedicate some time to try it.

If it is a response to that, you would have to assume that Hickson left because he pushed for or against something relating to working on Flutter. If Google wanted to place him elsewhere, for example, and he left Google because he figured he can bankroll his own work on Flutter and look elsewhere, that'd be in line with this line:

> 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.

Your comment couldn't be more off-base.

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).

Fair enough. What is the impetus for this long, whinging thread that has been linked to, then? If it's not about Google at the very least not showing any confidence in Flutter it seems fairly hyperbolic.

You'd have to ask Tim

> Google has not lowered the amount resources dedicated to Flutter.

What about the recent layoffs from the Flutter & Dart teams?