I spent thr last 10 minutes reading the flutter docs, and I have no fucking idea what it is, what language it is written in, or generally anything useful about it. I think we’ll be fine.
Also, Google’s contributions to Python are mostly obsolete. optparse was replaced by argparse which is .mostly replaced by click. Yapf was never successful and black has taken a commanding lead. Python will be just fine.
I typed in “python flutter” into Google and clicked on the first link. The first pictures shows a bit of code and a simple window with two buttons. I go back to the code and skim it. It defines the buttons. How you cannot deduce from that, that this library makes UI says a lot about you.
I also think your assumption that click replaced argparse is wrong. Click heavily relies on decorators which makes separation of functional code and command line interface code either impossible or difficult. If you only care about your one program that is fine, but it does make your code not very reusable.
Flutter is a UX/UI framework for Dart programming language. Dart is a statically typed (optionally dynamic possible), completely type safe, soundly null-safe compiled programming language. It can compile to JS to run on the web, or compile to x86_64 or Arm assembly to run on hardware.
Combining Dart, which is honestly an awesome but underrated language with Flutter which is a declarative UI framework, I have found a new love for app development. It’s very pleasant.
And now I get shot in the dick with this news…
Flutter uses dart. It’s one of the best ui building frameworks I have used. Not that it is perfect…
I just hate reading it. I wish it looked more like Kotlin and less like JavaScript 😭
Flutter - the framework - is great. Dart as a language is tolerable - lot of ugly boilerplate, manual codegen, and things you can’t quite express correctly are everywhere, but if you’re not too much of a stickler, Flutter is still worth it (at least until Compose Multiplatform matures - if ever).
What idiot applies for a job at Google?
Disinvestment into Python, Flutter, and Dart is a clear signal that those tools are unimportant to Google. I won’t be recommending that anyone use Dart or Flutter on new projects.
You shouldn’t have ever been recommending dart or flutter.
Python ain’t going anywhere tho
I’m mostly just biased because I do native mobile development but flutter has always seemed like a false economy to me. You’re trying to build cross platform but it’ll take more than 2x as long as building each platform to get the same quality of experience. So either you have a shittier experience or you take even longer than true native dev.
But I’m obviously very biased here.
I would argue so, because Google has quite a reputation for killing projects: https://killedbygoogle.com
Especially with a programming language or framework, you don’t want to invest in it, only to find out that it’s going on the chopping block.
Just had to look at it out of curiosity and man, it looks like yet another C+=1. The code samples on Wikipedia contain one of those gaudy for-loops and a ternary, as if that was still peak language design four decades after C got published.
But what I seriously don’t get: Why the hell did they develop Go then? That’s yet another C+=1, with even some design similarities to Dart, e.g. it’s garbage-collected but compiles to machine code.
Like, yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time that different teams develop competing products at Google, but what kind of culture leads to there even being demand for two C+=1s?
It was originally meant as a better JavaScript and it was. It failed when none of the other browsers expressed interest in supporting it. It languished for a while and then was taken up by the Flutter team. At the time Flutter took it up it was somewhere around the level of Java 8 in features but not quite on par. Since then it’s seen some massive improvements to the type system and language. It’s completely null sound, not just null safe like Kotlin. It recently got records/tuples and one of the more capable pattern matching syntaxes I’ve ever seen in a functional imperative hybrid language. The next stable version of dart will introduce a compiler macro system that is very promising. The syntax isn’t always the prettiest due to it trying to not totally break old code. I do think that it offers a wide range of modern language features that competes heavily with Swift and Kotlin in the mobile space.
they pledged, with google’s backing no less, to focus on it to develop ubuntu apps. they even spent a few of cycles working on porting their installer and snap store to it.
they pledged to adopt flutter heavily in ubuntu’s apps, in partnership with google. they even took like a couple cycles to port their entire installer and snap store to it.
I won’t be recommending that anyone use Dart or Flutter on new projects.
You seem to think Google cares at all. Android has been languishing and Flutter is lightyears ahead. KMP is junk compared to what Flutter has accomplished with a fraction of the bells and whistles.
You seem to think Google cares at all.
Odd conclusion to draw. I’m simply not inclined to recommend tools that are not going to be supported by the organization that created them. Development ecosystems are important when planning a project.
What I mean to say is that Google isn’t invested in native android either. It’s been repeatedly strip mined by first-timers looking for a quick promotion and left to burn.
Things got so bad that Google gave up on native Views and created Jetpack Compose, which has been a source of many complaints related to performance.
In 2024 Flutter has instant hot-reload, and the “native” (but 100% bundled) solution still requires a complete reinstall on the device. In fact, Dart can compile to native code (or JIT) without an issue, yet Kotlin Native is barely in GA in the new compiler support has been lagging while the new compiler isn’t out of beta and is still poorly supported by tooling.
Consider the absurdity: React Native is the only true native framework out of RN, Jetpack Compose, and Flutter. And all of this barely scratches the surface of the tooling problems that Flutter 99% avoids by allowing development on desktop, web or iOS simulator.
Laying people off instead of offering to move them to the now-more-important projects has to be one of the dumbest management moves that tech companies repeatedly do. These are people already trained on all the policies and procedures and tooling and “culture” specific to your company.
It’s going to be more expensive to hire and train new people when the dumdums in upper management finally figure out the mistakes they made that got them to a point where they decided they need to cut jobs and projects, and the ramp-up time before you actually start seeing progress on those priorities is going to be seriously lengthened. Of course they won’t acknowledge it was their fault in the first place, and again the heads roll on the wrong end of the corporate ladder.
They are not stupid at all. Their interests are in conflict with the interests of tech workers and they are winning effortlessly, over and over again.
The big tech companies are all owned by the same people. If these layoffs cause google to lose market share to another company, it’s fine because they own that company too.
What matters is coordinating regular layoffs across the whole industry to reduce labour costs. It’s the same principle as a strike: if the whole industry does layoffs, workers gradually have to accept lower salaries. In other words, the employers are unionised and the employees are not.
This process will probably continue for the next 20 years, until tech workers have low salaries and no job security. It has happened to countless industries before, and I doubt we are special.
I’m sure the next big industries will be technology-focused, but that’s not the same as “tech”. They won’t involve people being paid $200k to write websites in ruby.
It’s not dumb. They understand what they are doing. They think firing multiple people at once can flood the market with developers, and the situation could be used to hire new people with a lower compensation.
Don’t think the rationale behind this is work quality or developer productivity. This is a power move. For Google and many big tech companies devs are replaceable and are just cogs in the machine. The problem is that they became too costly with the advent of COVID.
If I’m reading their CEOspeak right, their objective is to fire the very experienced people, that costs a lot of money, and replace them with people that costs less.
I never worked at Google, so I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like the Python team is important and that this will backfire. As the people that costs less will also be less skilled, and Python is an important piece for AI/ML research, where Google is already lagging behind. The AI people in Google will get lower quality help with Python, and Google will lag even further behind.
That what happens when the CEO is an MBA and not an engineer.
Engineers over index in their own ways, but I think you’re spot on with decoding the PR speak.
The Python team was very involved with the Python Software Foundation and was influencial with directing priorities for the Python programming language reference implementation (which is by far the most widely used implementation of Python). Google just gave up their say in how the language will evolve. Seems like an incredibly bad strategy. But then again, Google has been, from a financial perspective, nothing more than a digital classified ads platform for decades. If a smart MBA were running Google they’d start spinning off divisions into new IPOs and cashing in with dividends like other large conglomerates have done in the past when they have stopped inovating or actually commit to their projects long term.
It’s going to be more expensive to hire and train new people when the dumdums in upper management finally figure out the mistakes
Unfortunately that’s not the case. Those who have been laid off are those paid high salaries to build up the foundation. Now that the foundation is already there, they future work won’t be as complex as before and need less training. So why would they still pay the very high salaries? They’ll just get rid of the used-to-be-important programmers and hire the can-be-hired-for-a-lot-less programmers from India. It’s sad, but that’s the reality.
Now that the foundation is already there, they future work won’t be as complex as before and need less training.
LOL, LMAO even.
Yeah, at least give you argument so I can also laugh at myself too.
Anyway, take a look at this article that just came out just earlier, which means that by no chance it’s been referenced when I wtote my earlier comment. And do take note of the BOLD words.
The Core unit is responsible for building the technical foundation behind the company’s flagship products and for protecting users’ online safety, according to Google’s website. Core teams include key technical units from information technology, its Python developer team, technical infrastructure, security foundation, app platforms, core developers, and various engineering roles.
have you seen the salaries in Germany? still much much cheaper than Bay Area
FUCK
Google why do you do me like this
