The High Learning Curve of Flutter: Why It’s Not Just Another Easy Framework

Let me share my story about Flutter, which might be my last one. I started using Flutter in 2018 when I needed a technology to help me complete my semester project within three months. Since I had never built anything from scratch using a programming language before, it was a scary task, even with the support of three fellow group members. This was the time when Flutter had just entered the market, promising to be the best UI toolkit for building MVPs, which was exactly what we needed. All worries resolved.

My first foray into Flutter was a success. The mobile app development process had never been smoother, and the user interface was so intuitive that CSS started looking like a relic of past. My honeymoon period with Flutter was quickly fleeting, and my second project proved to be a different story entirely. I found myself increasingly reliant on my friends to handle the heavy lifting of complex logic and backend work, while I contented myself with designing UI elements. After all, had I attempted to develop mobile apps using Kotlin or Java, I would have been saddled with the mind-numbing task of writing Frontend code in XML. What a nightmare that would have been!

Thus, I clung to Flutter like a security blanket, convinced that it was the easiest and most efficient option at my disposal. How wrong I was! As I approached my final year of college, it became clear that the rosy outlook of Flutter had its share of thorns that would catch you off guard. From selecting the right packages to accessing platform-specific features that involved native code, I quickly realized that I needed to pay closer attention to the programming fundamentals of Flutter.

So, I began focusing on writing clean code, maintaining project-specific packages, and connecting with Firebase and other third-party services. In addition, I delved into different architecture patterns such as MVC, MVVM, and BLoC. It was a challenging journey, but after a year of job experience, I found myself at a level where I could confidently see myself working with and learning Flutter for years to come.

Despite my previous experience with Flutter, I was quickly confronted with new challenges when I left my first job in search of further growth. Each Upwork client presented a unique set of obstacles, requiring a range of state management techniques, UI rendering methods, data fetching approaches. There was no single way of doing things, and I had to be adaptable to handle diverse codebases. I was bombarded with demands such as implementing new animation techniques, adopting functional or object-oriented programming paradigms, avoiding cloud integration, and reproducing the design to fit different platforms including web. Needless to say, it was a lot to handle.

However, one may argue, “Isn’t this the case with any framework, development environment, or programming language? Why are you complaining?” Well, I’m glad you asked. Allow me to demonstrate my point.

1. In order to work seamlessly with Flutter, one needs to be extremely familiar with Dart. For many, this learning curve alone demands a significant investment of time and effort to reap the rewards. While it’s possible to create a Flutter application without prior experience in Dart, to truly master Flutter, the ability to think in terms of Dart syntax is an absolute must.
2. Flutter has many widgets to build beautiful and complex user interfaces. However, each widget has its own set of properties and methods that need to be learned. Even if you know the widget exists, you still need to understand its interface to customize it to your needs. Sometimes, a widget may not have a specific feature you need, such as changing its icon. With every new application, you will encounter different needs, and it will take time to become proficient in all the widgets that Flutter offers.
3. Flutter’s reactive and declarative programming model allows developers to build complex UIs with ease. However, this programming model is different from traditional imperative programming, which may be difficult for seasoned developers to be habitual in.
4. To effectively use Flutter, you need to understand the various state management approaches available and the benefits and drawbacks of each. However, if you’re working in a corporate environment, you may be required to use the state management system recommended by the company, regardless of your level of familiarity or the project’s requirements. This necessitates a significant investment of time in learning about each of the state management approaches in Flutter, even if you don’t use them for a particular project.
5. While offering the convenience of building apps for both Android and iOS, Flutter requires developers to possess an additional set of skills when working with platform-specific implementations such as accessing native APIs. This can be time-consuming and distracting from the actual task at hand. To become a proficient senior Flutter developer, one can expect creating packages that handle the native side of things, working with Java, Kotlin and Swift languages, and abstracting a lot of native code into the syntactic sugar that Flutter provides.

With sufficient experience, one can become proficient in developing applications using Flutter. However, this proficiency comes with a learning curve that is equal to or greater than that of other frameworks. This article is not intended to discourage or criticize Flutter for being challenging; rather, it is a reality check. Some readers may find it amusing that I came to this realization late, but many Flutter developers, including myself, were initially attracted to the framework because of its initial ease of use.

You will never escape the need of coding, programming and problem solving ability no matter the illusion of comfort a Framework like Flutter provide. So it boils down to the basics, the required amount of patience, and grit. I hope to see anyone feeling overwhelmed by the current of Flutter on the next side receiving wonderful perks. Until then, keep learning!