I decided I wanted to investigate Flutter, Google’s mobile application SDK that can be used to create both Android and iOS applications. It purports to be easy to use even for beginners. Then I started down the gauntlet of installing and configuring it for Windows.
1 Install Git for Windows with a specific configuration and your choice of editors (and Powershell if not on Windows 10)
2 Download the Flutter SDK and unzip it and launch the bat file.
3 Update your path
4 Run Flutter Doctor to see if you are missing dependencies
5 Install Android Studio (even if you’re going to edit in a different editor. Why would you need if you are targeting iOS only?)
6 Setup your Android device running 4.1 or higher
7 Setup the Android emulator including enabling hardware acceleration on your PC
OK, that’s page one. Ever since Eclipse was introduced development tools have become almost more complicated to setup and configure than the actual application would be to write. IMO we’ve transitioned from our role as software developers to configurators and integrators. There’s nothing “integrated” in IDE’s these days.
skane2600
<p>"Ever" not "Every". <em>Must … edit … post… but … can't.</em></p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#380101">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>Thanks for editing for me.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#380244">In reply to ecumenical:</a></em></blockquote><p>The only thing simpler about installation on the Mac seems to be that you don't have to install some utilities that come with the OS since it's Unix-based. You still have to install the Android SDK regardless of whether you're targeting Android or not and (as I forgot to mention in my original post) that means installing Java as well. Kind of ironic that the first step in being able to write Android apps without Java is installing Java.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#380390">In reply to maethorechannen:</a></em></blockquote><p>"There's probably an assumption that if you're only targeting iOS then you're on a Mac and would be following the Mac instructions (which involves installing Xcode at that point)."</p><p><br></p><p>Except that you have to install Android Studio on the Mac too to use flutter, so the requirement has nothing to do with which platform your running on. In fact I should have made a stronger statement: Why should you have to install Android Studio even if you're just targeting Android with Flutter? The answer is that Google didn't want to bother to breakout what was needed for Flutter development so they make you install the whole thing including the Java environment you don't need.</p><p><br></p><p>"Though if you're only targeting iOS, why would you be using Flutter in the first place?"</p><p><br></p><p>I don't see your logic. One should be interested in using Flutter only to target both Android and iOS, but neither one separately? </p><p><br></p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#380509">In reply to maethorechannen:</a></em></blockquote><p>Many developers don't like Java and it's no more "native" to Android than Dart is. In fact Java isn't native on any platform since it uses a virtual machine.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#380619">In reply to dcdevito:</a></em></blockquote><p>Well, you did some of the work before, so adding the Flutter tools was easier naturally. But to promote a new tool it's best to minimize the friction in installing and configuring it. </p><p><br></p><p>Historically developers have been willing to put up with a lot of primitive s**t (perhaps as proof of their "manliness" as devs) but it's 2018 and there's no excuse for a "good enough for developers" attitude toward usability IMO. </p>