Flutter is a cross-platform mobile application development framework launched by Google, which has attracted much attention in recent years. While Flutter excels in some ways, there are still some who are skeptical about its prospects. Some recent articles have raised many questions and criticisms about the development of Flutter, saying that it is difficult for it to become a "top star" in mobile application development. These articles mentioned many problems and defects, from technical implementation, ecosystem, user experience, etc. aspects were analyzed and evaluated.
1. Language issues
Flutter uses the Dart language, which is a newer object-oriented language. Although its syntax is simple and easy to read and write, compared to other commonly used programming languages, the usage rate of Dart is relatively low, which makes some developers think that Flutter has a steep learning curve. In addition, Dart's ecosystem is relatively small, which means that when developing applications with Flutter, you may need to write some necessary functions yourself or use less popular third-party libraries. However, Dart's static type checking and strong type safety can improve the maintainability and readability of the code, which may be more beneficial to the stability and reliability of the application in the long run.
2. Developer Ecosystem
Flutter's ecosystem is relatively small, because Flutter is a relatively new framework. Compared with other frameworks such as React Native or Ionic, Flutter has fewer developers and user groups, and its community and ecosystem are relatively weak. This makes some developers may find that when using Flutter to develop applications, they need to spend more time and energy to solve problems, or write some necessary functions themselves. However, with the continuous development and growth of Flutter, its community and ecosystem are gradually expanding and improving. In the future, more third-party libraries and tools may appear, and more developers will participate in the development of Flutter. , which helps boost the Flutter ecosystem.
3. Study cost
Although the syntax of Flutter is relatively simple and easy to understand, learning Flutter requires a certain programming foundation and experience. Especially for developers who have no mobile development experience, learning Flutter may take more time and effort. In addition, due to the relatively small ecosystem of Flutter, some problems need to be solved by ourselves or use less popular third-party libraries, which may increase the cost and difficulty of learning. However, compared with other mobile development frameworks, the learning cost of Flutter is not high. As long as you master the basic programming concepts and syntax, you can start using Flutter for development.
Compared with Flutter, the cross-platform development of applet container technology is easier to use, and there is no need to learn custom UI components and write more code to build UI and process logic like Flutter. The applet container technology provides a development method similar to web development. Developers can use front-end technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to develop applets, and use some development tools and platforms to quickly build and deploy applets. This makes the development threshold of small program container technology relatively low, even developers without mobile development experience can get started relatively quickly.
In addition, the ecosystem of applet container technology is relatively mature and complete, with a large user group and developer community. In the Mini Program ecosystem, there are many third-party libraries and components available to help developers quickly build and develop Mini Programs. Compared with Flutter, the ecosystem of applet container technology is richer and can provide more development tools and solutions, allowing developers to develop applications more conveniently.
4. Performance issues
The performance of Flutter is very good, but compared to frameworks such as React Native, there may still be some performance bottlenecks. For example, there may be performance issues when dealing with large amounts of data or complex animations, etc. In addition, the UI rendering mechanism in Flutter may lead to higher CPU and GPU usage, so you need to pay special attention to performance issues when developing Flutter applications. Nevertheless, Flutter is superior to other frameworks in many aspects, such as its fast hot reload function and excellent cross-platform support, etc. Therefore, the performance problem of Flutter will not be the main reason why developers give up using Flutter.
5. Design issues
Flutter's design style and development method may not be suitable for all developers. Flutter's design style is more radical. It adopts a method called "self-drawing UI", which means that all UI components are customized, and there is no consistent design with the platform's native UI components. This makes some developers think that Flutter's design is different from other frameworks, and it takes a while to get used to it. In addition, the development method of Flutter is different from the traditional declarative UI, and developers need to write more codes to build UI and process logic. This makes some developers think that Flutter's development method is not very intuitive, and it takes more time to understand and learn.
6. Community Issues
Although Flutter's community and ecosystem are growing, it is still relatively small compared to other frameworks. This may cause some problems to be difficult to solve in a timely manner, or it may not be possible to find a suitable third-party library to solve certain problems. In addition, because Flutter is relatively new, some developers may think that the documentation and tutorials of Flutter are not perfect or detailed enough, which may affect the developer's experience and learning efficiency. However, over time, these issues may be gradually resolved, and Flutter's community and ecosystem will become stronger and stronger.
7. Market share issues
Although Flutter has developed rapidly in recent years, its market share is still relatively low. At present, React Native is still one of the mainstream frameworks for mobile development, and frameworks such as Ionic and NativeScript also have their own user groups. This may cause some developers to be skeptical about the use of Flutter, thinking that the user base of Flutter is not wide enough and may not have enough development potential. However, with the continuous development and growth of Flutter, its market share is gradually increasing. In the future, more enterprises and developers may choose to use Flutter for application development.
Although Flutter still has some shortcomings and challenges in some aspects, we can also see its continuous development and progress. Google and its community continue to strengthen support and promotion of Flutter, and developers are also constantly exploring and using Flutter to develop various types of applications. I believe that in the future development, Flutter will continue to improve and optimize, and become a more powerful and influential mobile application development framework.
At the same time, we must also be aware that each technology has its applicable scenarios and limitations, and we need to make reasonable choices and applications based on project requirements and technical characteristics in actual development.