Capstone project – My first exposure to cross-platform frameworks.
I really enjoy working on our capstone project so far!! As I mention in my previous blog, we are building a Citizen Science app for K-12 kids. Our app should act as a platform that lets teachers create projects and students gather data and analyze results. As planned, we are using cross platform technology to build our app on both platforms (Android and iOS).
It took us some time to decide on which cross-platform solution to use, considering our time frame to learn these new technologies and also how effieciant this solution is to start building our app. After a quick reasearch, our winner was Flutter. (Google created Flutter in 2015 and officially launched it in 2018). Flutter is an open-source framework that allows developers to create cross-platform apps using a single codebase. Flutter apps can be used on web browsers, Fuchsia, Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Why Flutter, you may ask? The answer lies in its unparalleled blend of versatility, efficiency, and elegance. Flutter allows us to craft stunning, fluid user interfaces that seamlessly adapt to any device or platform, be it iOS, Android, or even the web. Flutter uses Dart as a programming language, which is similar to C#. The framework also includes a library of pre-made widgets, making it easy for developers with limited programming experience to create mobile apps. Its hot reload feature significantly accelerates our development cycle, empowering us to iterate rapidly and bring our app to life. Additionally, Flutter has great documentation and learning resources and is backed up by Google wich is a big tech company so it will have constant support and the commuinty of flutter developers are rapidely growing.
But as with any technology, there’s always room for improvement. While Flutter has undoubtedly revolutionized the way we develop apps on different platforms, there are areas where it could be improved further. For instance, the lack of third-party libraries and the big Flutter app size (for bare a minimum app) are areas that need some improvements. Moreover, native applications outperform cross-platform counterparts due to the direct interaction between the code and underlying resources. Native apps also tend to have smaller sizes, resulting in quicker downloads from the application store.
In conclusion, my experience so far with Our Capstone project, my team and learning Flutter has been nothing but fun and enjoyable. I love learning new technologies and put these knowladge in practice. And that’s exactly what are we doing in this course, so, I couldn’t ask for more! 😀
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