Recently I got influenced by a friend. I told him about my app/game I’m currently building with Python ad Kivy. So I was told I’m a fool. I definitely need to switch to Flutter and Dart. Python for mobile sucks and etc.
After having a long conversation I decided to at least try Flutter. So found some tutorials and started on creating my dev environment. Installing Android Studio, Flutter SDK and etc.
Most of the tutorials I found where for macOS or Windows and I use Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. First time I had at least small problems when I was looking for solutions, because I was trying to install everything on Linux machine 🙂
Anyway eventually I installed everything and fixed all the errors. After done with that part I started working on a very basic app and I can say it was easy. Flutter is quite nice. Dart is not bad either. And I’m speaking from a total beginners perspective. Not just a beginner with Flutter, but with more serious coding in general. Flutter is definitely like Lego :] You just stack stuff on top of other stuff and it works. It just works.
Very very simple stuff and not a lot of code. But you already have a working app on your phone just after these couple lines. It is responsive, fast loading and etc. 🙂
And another great thing is how Flutter, and Dart plugins for Android Studio can make your life easier. For example this part of my code:
Where you have those comments at the end of parenthesis, those are set automatically by Flutter and Dart plugins. I just needed to add comma after each parenthesis and then hit ENTER. Android Studio auto code formatting is also great.
So why I did not proceed on creating my first ever mobile project with Flutter and instead after couple days got back to Python and Kivy. Because Python is just… more fun. At least for me. It is more fun in everything, not just coding. Preparing your dev environment for example. I love virtualenv. Also from Kivy I can move to some other stuff and as a beginner I can quickly build anything in Python. For example I have a small robot on my desk
And I can program this thing with Python by using its SDK. I cannot do that with Dart. Maybe if I would see myself as a mobile developer only, then I guess I would switch to Flutter permanently. Because Flutter is great and its growing. Now it is a good time to start learning it and grow with it at the same time. But for me, for now, Python looks like the only thing I need and the only thing that actually gives me joy 😀 I mean coding. Coding in Python gives me more joy than with any other language :]
So I got back to my Python/Kivy project and will be writing more about my progress.