Comment by samsquire | Hacker News Reader

Comment by samsquire | Hacker News Reader

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Creating a multiplatform native framework for creating native looking GUIs is extremely difficult and a challenging piece of work. Add the complexity of C++ and I'm not surprised that things are as complicated as they are.

I once looked at what needs to be implemented to implement a text control interface in Mac OS and it was an API with hundreds of methods.

GUI frontend development IS complicated. There's so many edge cases with text rendering, editing logic, layout, state, native compatibility.

I started writing the beginnings of a flowing rendering engine using WxWidgets in Python using an algorithm from the ORC Solver whitepaper.

IntelliJ Idea, Netbeans are intricate advanced frontends and they are both written in Java.

How would a user interface written in a functional language look? I used to use Xmonad as a window manager which was very powerful and easy to use but it is written in Haskell.

I think any frontend technology that wins needs to be simple and easy to comprehend. I have yet to use Flutter.

I did have a frontend in Electron but my code was awful.

I would rather create user interfaces with a simple language and use a fast language for the data crunching. I think Python and Java count.

> How would a user interface written in a functional language look?

Maybe you're not aware of Elm?

https://elm-lang.org

Elm is really functional, unlike the likes of React that are just partially, kind of functional.

There's an attempt at bringing Elm to the desktop, the Roc language... here's an UI example written in Roc:

https://github.com/roc-lang/roc/blob/main/examples/gui/hello...

Maybe most people aren’t aware of Elm. Despite its good ideas it’s a niche language that should be avoided for real work because it has a bus factor of 1.

Unfortunately, it seems the developers behind elm do everything in their power so elm can never become mainstream

I absolutely love Xmonad, and I'm very impressed by how easy its architecture makes it to get complex changes to your environment off the ground. It's a godsend in terms of interfacing with the box, mostly because its configuration is so good, I just wish it had some prettier GUI building blocks to use --- the included packages like TreeSelect and GridSelect are absolutely hideous. I've always assumed their problem could be that no one who can really do UI is interested in an X WM focused on functionality over style, but it's a shame.

Would Flutter not work for you? Dart's a decent, though unpopular, language.

Rightfully unpopular if I might say so. I spent the last 2 weeks learning Flutter. I'm not having a good time. Compared to Vue everything takes so much longer. There's a reddit thread in the Flutter community about what people think could be improved upon. Flutter should decide on standards regarding routing and state management. It's all a hot mess. There should be standards, but Flutter doesn't have them. They're still stuck in the Android way of doing things. There is only 1 oidc auth solution and it only works on mobile. Null safety and checking is a PITA. And it's overly verbose.

However dotnet MAUI isn't any better.

So I'd rather do electron with Vue/Quasar. Why bother with native apps? Qt is too expensive.

Using dart and flutter every day for the last 3 years, I strongly disagree with you. Dart/Flutter is a lower level framework than something like vue, so yes it is more verbose. But there are standars, what you are referring to are just libraries builded on top of them. There are two ways to navigate, a legacy one and a new one, but this is normal in a young framework. State management? You are covered by the framework, wants something different? Just pick your poison between the available flavors. The base is sane and stable as a young growing framework can be and so is the ecosystem. Can’t say the same about JS

Maybe two weeks are not enough to understand something like Flutter and Dart…

My two cents

Is dart really unpopular? That surprises me. I'd put it top 3 languages based on features and dev environment.

I have an acquaintance that switched from Perl consultancy to Dart/Flutter consultancy and managed to find less work. This was someone that was engaged in the early days of Dart and was part of Google’s Flutter outreach program.

It is unpopular. Its only reason d'etre is being the only language used by Flutter. I'm not aware of any major project using it outside the Flutter apps.

Ah, I should perhaps have clarified. I didn't mean "popular" in the sense of widespread adoption, but. More "for it's domain, is it liked/disliked".

I've used it to build complicated app that interacts with low level C++ code, and I found it exceptionally well put together. High level UI code by flutter was a pleasure to work with, with interactive development and hot reloads.

Low level performant development with all the tools and legacy of C++, and all of it put together and debugged with fairly powerful tools as well.

I cannot think of any stack that could solve the same problem. That is, without having to build separate apps for Android and iOS. And even then, I'd consider it a more productive environment to use flutter even if you target one of the platforms.

And then, the language features themselves. Dart handles null safety in a way no other language and tooling does. It goes beyond null-handling syntax, and can give runtime-guarantees (assuming you check the remote code boundaries) for null safety.

The package management is great. So, if the languages is solely a great development environment for mobile apps, with the potential for desktop/web targets... I would say great job all around.

The only negative/red-flag this has is being managed and driven by google.

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I've been a developer for the larger part of my life now, and I very much respect the dart language and project. It is well put together, does the right abstractions at the right places. The syntax is great. The standard library is satisfying. The tooling and OS abstractions are great. And I would honestly place it top 3 in terms of enjoyment and productivity. The top three being perhaps rust and kotlin.

Every language is "popular" with the niche of hardcore supporters who really really like it. Actually-popular languages are the ones who can go beyond that niche and attract large numbers of developers.

Dart is not one of those languages. Dart is just not popular.

I agree about the different ways to interpret what popular/unpopular means. But, "app development" is not really a niche. And having almost 50% market share of cross platform frameworks in that market, and growing, is also no small piece either.

> And having almost 50% market share of cross platform frameworks in that market

Is this really true? I've encountered very few Flutter apps as an iOS user — actually I can't think of any that I haven't intentionally downloaded to see what Flutter is like.

A quick search does give some results to back me up:

- https://www.statista.com/statistics/869224/worldwide-softwar...

Combined with: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=flutter%2Crea...

Given that the first one was limited at 2021, I would be surprised it isn't around 60%. And, having used react-native and done extensive eval on it, flutter is by far the better architectural approach, so I expect this trend to continue (unless google cans the project that is :P). IMHO, the only reason to ever pick react-native over flutter is if you already have JS developers.

Thanks for the links!

Let me introduce you to this thing called Rails, used to be pretty hot...

Why is Dart not popular?

When I think introspectively I didn't want to use it because I was never sure what it gave me over what I already used.

There was also the abandonment of Google Web Toolkit (GWT) which I liked that Google abandoned and that I wasn't sure if Dart has staying power.

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