What is Flutter? Understanding its Working and Benefits

If you are trying to build your very own mobile development project and searching for software to work in, this is where your search ends. 

 

Flutter, recently introduced by Google in 2018, is an open-source technology for coding and creating native apps for Android and iOS. It is the best platform that you can use as a mobile SDK developer and here is why you must invest your time in learning it. 

 

About Flutter

 

As said earlier, Flutter is an open-source mobile SDK that allows developers to create native-looking Android and iOS apps from a single code base. It's essentially Google's UI toolkit for creating attractive, natively built applications from a single codebase for mobile (Android, iOS), desktop (Linux, Mac, Windows, Google Fuchsia), and web.

 

Dart, a basic object-oriented programming language, is used to create Flutter apps. Widgets are at the heart of Flutter's design. The complete user interface is made up of several widgets, each of which defines a structural element (such as a button or menu), a stylistic element (such as a font or color scheme), a layout feature (such as padding), and so on.

 

According to GitHub stars, Flutter is now among the top 11 software repositories. Hundreds of thousands of Flutter apps have been released on app stores. The Alibaba team's Xianyu app, which is utilized by over 50 million people, is one of the most noteworthy instances.

 

(Suggested read: What is Google’s Open Source Language Interpretability Tool?)

 

Testing flutter apps:

 

Now, to make things work, you need to test the Flutter apps before releasing it in the market. There are three major types of automated Flutter tests.

 

1. Unit testing:

 

A Flutter app's unit tests verify the functionality of a single method, function, or class. To put it another way, unit tests guarantee that the method under test produces the intended result when given a specific input. They assist users in writing code that is more testable and manageable.

 

The Flutter plugins for IntelliJ and VSCode allow users to conduct automated unit tests. In addition to supporting the execution of tests, IntelliJ and VSCode offer the quickest feedback loop and the ability to establish breakpoints.

 

2. Widget Testing:

 

Widget tests, often known as component tests in other UI frameworks, ensure that the widget's UI responds to particular interactions as intended. Because it contains many classes and requires a test environment that offers the required widget lifecycle context, it is far more thorough than a unit test.

 

The widget's test environment, on the other hand, is a considerably simpler implementation than a more complex UI system. Users of Flutter should develop widget tests for all of the popular widgets they use in their apps.

 

3. Integration Testing:

 

Integration tests examine the entire software or a significant section of it. These tests check the application's performance and make sure that all of the widgets and services are working correctly together.

 

Users of Flutter do integration tests on real devices as well as virtual devices like simulators and emulators. These tests are split into two parts: first, the application under test is deployed on a device (real or virtual), and then the application is driven from a separate test suite. This ensures that everything is operating as it should. (here)

 

Working of Flutter:

 

Here’s how Flutter works, as sourced from the medium:

 

1. The usage of widgets is at the heart of Flutter. Developers may create and customize the whole UI by merging multiple widgets. Each of these widgets defines a structural element (such as a button or menu), a stylistic element (such as a font or color scheme), a layout component (such as padding), and a variety of additional features.

2. Flutter doesn't employ OEM widgets; instead, it provides developers with ready-to-use widgets that seem like they belong in an Android or iOS app (following Material Design or Cupertino). Developers may, of course, construct their own widgets.

3. Flutter also has reactive-style views for developers. Flutter employs Dart as the JavaScript bridge to solve performance difficulties caused by utilizing a compiled programming language. For several platforms, it compiles Dart ahead of time (AOT) into native code.

4. Flutter can connect with the platform without the use of a JavaScript bridge, which requires a context transition between the JavaScript and native worlds. Compiling to native code, as you might expect, increases the app's launch time.

5. Flutter's usage of the Dart programming language is one of its most intriguing aspects. Flutter, like other systems that employ reactive views, updates the view tree with each new frame. To do so, it produces a large number of objects, each of which can only survive for one frame. Dart implements generational garbage collection that has shown to be particularly efficient for this sort of systems.

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Working of Flutter (source)

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Benefits of Flutter:

 

As you have learned by now, Flutter is one of the most interactive open-source mobile development platforms with a lot of benefits. Here we discuss all the advantages of Flutter that make it the best choice in the market.

 

1. Time saving and economic:

 

Flutter is a cross-platform programming language. As a result, software developers may create iOS and Android apps using the same code base. 

 

Cross-platform development is the most efficient way to save time and money in the development process.

 

2. Quality performance:

 

Dart compiles to native code, and Flutter provides its own widgets, so there's no need to use OEM widgets. This implies that communication between the app and the platform will be less mediated. 

 

Flutter's two characteristics ensure that apps start up quickly and have fewer performance concerns in general.

 

3. Hot reload:

 

Because of its hot reload feature, Flutter is getting a lot of momentum among smartphone developers. On emulators, simulators, and hardware, hot reloading lets users see the changes they've made to the code right away. 

 

In less than a second, the updated code is reloaded. The software is still functioning throughout this period, so developers don't have to waste time restarting it. It's much easier to create UIs, add new features, and repair errors. 

 

It's typically feasible to correct an issue in an app and then continue using it as if it never happened. Even if one needs to refresh a complete application, one can be assured that it will be finished quickly, speeding up the development process.

 

4. Open-source platform:

 

Flutter and Dart are both open-source and free to use, and they come with substantial documentation and community assistance to aid with any problems that one might run into.
 

5. Compatibility:

 

Another benefit of Flutter is that it comes with its own widgets, which means there are fewer concerns with compatibility. Developers will encounter fewer issues across OS versions and will be able to spend less time testing the program on earlier OS versions. 

 

Because Google uses Flutter extensively internally, the Flutter team is very driven to maintain its widget sets up to date and as near to the platform widgets as feasible. Flutter widgets may also be customized and updated by anybody. 

 

6. Similar to Native App performance:

 

For a good user experience, application performance is critical. While exact estimates are difficult to come by, it's reasonable to suggest that Flutter application performance will be indistinguishable from native app performance in the vast majority of circumstances and even better in complicated UI animation scenarios.

 

This is because, unlike other cross-platform frameworks, Flutter does not employ any intermediary code representations or interpretations. The Flutter application is written directly in machine code, removing any performance issues caused by the interpretation process.

 

(Read: React Native Development)

 

Downsides of Flutter:

 

It is to be duly noted that along with benefits, Flutter has some downsides too, that one needs to keep in mind while working in it. Nix-united has listed out some of those.

 

1. There aren't any third-party libraries

 

Flutter is a relatively new technology. As a result, the number of third-party libraries available for Flutter is currently restricted. Third-party libraries considerably reduce development time, therefore this is a clear disadvantage of working with Flutter.

 

2. The file is rather large

 

Many, if not all, of the apps created using Flutter, are solely intended for mobile devices. 

 

Despite the fact that today's mobile devices have vast storage capabilities, the file size remains significant. The construction of a hello world app in Flutter, for example, may take anywhere from 4.7MB to 6.7MB. The native Java version of the identical software is closer to 500KB.

 

3. New abilities are necessary

 

While Flutter is simple to use and can be picked up by non-programmers, it does need that developers first understand Dart. This adds a new learning period to every project, potentially increasing the time and cost. 

 

However, if a developer is already familiar with Java/C#, he or she may quickly transition to Dart. Furthermore, Flutter's Dart programming language is simple to pick up for people with less programming experience.

 

(Must read: Best Programming Languages for Game Development)

 

So, after reading this article, you must have a clear perspective about Flutter, on whether to use it for your newest project or not.

 

For both developers and companies, the Flutter framework offers fascinating possibilities. Mobile app development is quick and cost-effective when iOS and Android apps are built using the same codebase and a user-friendly design. Organizations may rapidly and easily deploy high-quality Flutter apps with Perfecto.