What is & Why Flutter, Some interesting facts about Flutter

What is Flutter ?

Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for building beautiful , natively compiled applications for mobile , web , and desktop from a single codebase.

What’s more about Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source UI kit developed by Google. It is a framework and SDK for crafting beautiful and fast experiences frontend for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. That means using Flutter you can build native mobile applications for Android and iOS with one language ‘DART’. DART nothing but, It is an object-oriented programming language used to code flutter apps which is also developed by Google. 

The first version of flutter known as ‘Sky’ was introduced in 2015 at the DART developer summit on December 4, 2018 (Flutter 1.0 was released at the flutter live event, denoting the first stable version of Flutter) overcome the negatives of Angular. What is that?

If Angular is used to make a mobile app for Android OS, then you need to build the same app for iOS, it should be rebuilt from zero. that means Angular is a platform depended. To overcome this problem Google introduces another framework called Flutter.

Table of contents

• What is Flutter
• Flutter components
• Benefits of Flutter
• Drawbacks of Flutter
• Importance of Flutter today
• Conclusion

Flutter Components

The architecture of Flutter was very interesting and vastly usable. There are four components that create the SDK platform, they are, 

1. Flutter Engine
2. DART Platform
3. Foundation Library
4. OS Design Specific Widgets 

1.    Flutter engine

Which is a portable runtime for hosting Flutter applications primarily based on the C++ language. It implements Flutter core libraries, including animation, graphics, file, and network I/O, accessibility support, plugin architecture, and DART runtime and compiles toolchain. And another thing is that Skia which is an open-source library of Google is used to render low-level graphics.

2.    DART Platform

DART is a programming language used to design client-side services for web and mobile apps. It is developed by Google on October 10 and can also use to build server desktop applications. Dart is not a popular language but is currently actively used with Flutter for developing the front-end of cross-platform mobile apps and web developments. 

Flutter uses Dart, which is a fast object-oriented language with features like Minix, Isolates, generic, and optional static types. Another special aspect of Dart is that it can use just in time compilation(compiler runs during the time of execution of the program)

3.    Foundation Library

Foundation library null safety. Core Flutter framework primitives. The features defined in this library are the lowest level utility classes and functions used by all other layers of the Flutter framework. There are different types of libraries are there some of them are animation, foundation, widgets, services, foundation, gestures, rendering, scheduler, etc.  Major foundation libraries are; Classes, Mixins, Constants, Properties, Functions, Enums, Typedefs, and Exceptions foundation libraries.

4.    OS Design Specific Widgets 

In Flutter everything is a widget, Widget is a way to declare and construct User-Interfaces. A Flutter widget has a different role in the UI development, sometimes it might help the design, sometimes it help with layout, interactions, etc. There are n no widgets are available for the Flutter app development. These widgets are built using a modern framework that takes inspiration from React. Now here I noted some basic widgets that are commonly used, which are Text, Row, Column, Stack, Container, Box decoration, etc.

Benefits of Flutter

Without any deep comparison with other mobile development platforms, here I list some key benefits of flutter as follows.

1. Open-source
2. Fast & simple development
3. High in performance
4. Expressive and flexible UI
5. Cross-platform development
6. Native feet and features
7. Widget

1.    Open-source

Both Flutter and DART is open-source project, with contributions from Google, other companies, and individuals. So it is free to use and provides extensive documentation and community support.

2.    Fast & simple development

Flutter provides a faster and more dynamic mobile application development. That mean’s the changes made by the developers can be seen simultaneously in the app. In less than a second, the changed code is reloaded while the app is running with no need for a restart! this is called Hot reload(Usually takes a few milliseconds for changes). With a prior knowledge in object-oriented programming, Flutter provides an easy environment for development as its simplicity concerns. This is not great for developing User-Interfaces and for bug fixing also. I think this is one of the things about flutter loved by the Flutter app developers.

3.    High in performance

When it comes to performance Flutter will be the king(60 frames per second). Flutter has its own OEM widget then DART compiles into native code. This will reduce the communication gap between the app and the platform. And another important factor is that Flutter is one of only mobile SDK that provides reactive views without javascript bridge. All of this contributes to the better performance of the Flutter app.

4.    Expressive & Flexible UI

From the part of Flutter, developers can experience flexible and expressive UI for mobile, web, and desktop. There is a rich set of design materials like widgets, behaviors, etc. Every UI component will experience across different platforms and there are no platform-specific UI components.

5.    Cross-platform development

Cross-platform development(CPD) means that once you write the codebase it will be useful on multiple platforms(Android & iOS). Flutter is platform-independent because Flutter has its own widgets and designs so no need to rewrite the code for a different platform. This will help the developers for easy and fast development and save time and resources.

6.    Native feet and features

Flutter’s widget incorporates all critical platform differences such as scrolling, navigation, icons, and fonts and your Flutter code is compiled to native ARM machine code using Dart’s native compilers.

Flutter enables you to gain the native features which are platform-specific like scrolling, navigation, icons, fonts, camera, geolocation, etc. If you want to develop an app for a specific region or geolocation, then Flutter allows you to build and modify the UIs of the application based on the preferred language, text as well as layout.

7.    Widget

Widget is top on the features of Flutter. Using the Flutter widgets developers are capable of developing customizable and complex widgets. Flutter also comes with rich, customizable widget sets for Android, iOS, and Material design and help to create impressive UI part.

Drawbacks of Flutter

Likewise, Flutter has downfalls too but there are no uncompromising solutions, and Flutter is no exception.

1. Issues with OS
2. Lack of developers
3. Dart
4. Massive file size
5. No third party libraries

1.    Issues with OS

Flutter is a Google product. This is why iOS developers are worried about its implementation. But the fact is Google is directly interested in fixing bugs in a short period of time and now creating Android applications on Flutter is enjoyable and fast.

2.    Lack of developers

It is not a new technology but not a familiar one. Flutter is a framework that is developed in the DART language. DART is an object-oriented language developed by Google and it is not a widely adaptable language. DART is alive among the developers only after the journey started by Flutter. So it is very young and not a lot of people have adequate knowledge about it. If you are thinking of hiring a flutter developer that is not a simple play need to be very careful. 

3.    DART

Google developed programming language DART has some benefits on the other hand it has also some drawbacks. This is an object-oriented programming language but not great as other languages C#, Java, Object C, and JavaScript. One of the main drawbacks of DART has very limited resources online and it’s hard to find solutions to problems. So it is fairly new to the programmers and rarely used in the market.

4.    Massive file size

In most cases, the developers go through the massive length to minimize the app size. The user’s phone has restricted storage, If an app has a larger size definitely there will be a chance to delete the app. So the better thing is that release an app in a way that prevents them from deleting it. Sometimes to reduce the size of code, programmers are frequently avoiding animations, compressed images, and look for a space for reducing the no of packages and libraries.

5.    No third party libraries

Third-party libraries have a key role in automating the development for developers and relieving the requirement to program from scratch. These types of libraries are open source, pre-tested, and easily available. But in the case of Flutter is new for app development, and difficult to find such free packages and libraries for development. From the latest update, this tool is still in the growing phase.   

Importance of Flutter today

Nowadays, mobile apps become a vital part of our daily lives. Whether you want to go for a trip, buy a product, or virtually connect with your favorite once, etc. definitely you will take your smartphone. Simply, the upcoming future is handled by mobile apps and their technology. 

In general, developing a mobile application is not a simple task there are many difficulties there from the selection of framework also React Native, Angular, Xamarin is some of them but choosing a perfect one is another critical task. Even once they develop an application they will give the first priority to the Android. is it right? definitely,  no doubt. Then we need to build another one for iOS users.  that is very difficult for everyone. To avoid this situation now the developers moving to Flutter. 

Using Flutter we can build an application from a single code-base and is useful for both Android and iOS. because Flutter is compiled into the native ARM code. Flutter allows programmers to use a single code base, this unifies the team, decreases risk, and speeds time to market. I think this will be one of the reasons Flutter become popular

Conclusion

As you can see, Flutter has become the powerful and most innovative mobile technology on the market right now and can’t be ignored anymore. To build a mobile application on both iOS and Android at a time then Flutter becomes a great option. Flutter is the quickest way to deliver a well-performing cross-platform mobile app with an amazing UI.  So I can obviously tell that within a few calendar periods Flutter becomes the ultimate cross-platform promising UI framework.