Flutter Developer Weekly

// From Mark

Change is Constant

Several of the links in today's issue underscore what seems to be the standard in the tech world: change is constant, and keeping up can be tricky. As just one example, you may have thought you had Bloc version 4 under your belt, but version 5 is out now, and version 6 is coming soon. (I've linked to the important Bloc changes in today's issue.)

I hope you find this newsletter helpful in your quest to keep up with the constant change, and to stay on top of your craft as a Flutter developer.

Enjoy!

News

Breaking Changes Coming to the Flutter Firebase Firestore Plugin

The link title here says it all. If you're using the Flutter Firebase Firestore plugin in your app, you'll want to bring yourself up to speed on the changes coming soon, including some breaking ones. The public API is apparently still in flux, but once stabilized, this could mean some work for you, depending on your use case.

Code Craft

Dart Null Safety: The Ultimate Guide to Non-Nullable Types

I don't think I'm overstating it when I say that if you've developed any body of work at all in Dart, the upcoming language support of null safety could represent one of the largest changes you'll need to consider across much of your existing code. (I'd consider null safety to be one of the hallmarks of Swift and Kotlin, so it's good to see Dart getting some love here too, but the work to support it may not be trivial for any given app.)

Although I mentioned null safety in Dart last week, if you're not familiar with the details yet, this guide by Andrea Bizzotto should really help you dig into the concepts and syntax, so that you're ready to hit the ground running when it eventually makes its way into the Flutter SDK.

Tutorials

Firestore CRUD with Flutter

In this video tutorial, Andy Julow walks through the basics of implementing Firestore on the back end of a Flutter mobile app, using the Provider package for state management.

If an hour is too much to invest and you only need a walk through of how to set up Firestore in your application, Andy also just published a thirteen-minute tutorial on adding Firebase to your Flutter app.

Widgets and Packages

Bloc Library v5 Migration Guide

Felix Angelov, whose bloc package is one of the mainstays of state management in flutter, has just released version 5. If you're using flutter_bloc in your code, as I am, you've probably already seen the upgrade prompt, but if you'd like to learn the details, Felix's migration guide should help you get started on bringing your code in line with version 5.

Cubit Package to Merge with Bloc

As if Felix hasn't been busy enough with the Bloc upgrade to version 5, he's also been working on a more lightweight version of Bloc, called Cubit, and his approach here seems promising for many use cases.

Although Cubit had been released initially as its own package, Felix received enough positive feedback on combining it with Bloc that it's now the official direction. The link in the title gives you the details on the code merge, which now appears to be slated for Bloc version 6. (And yes, this will likely bring breaking changes to Bloc, so be prepared.)

About Dialog Widget

Sometimes it's easy to miss some of the standard Flutter Widgets which are available. I have to confess that AboutDialog was one of those for me, as I didn't discover it until after I had already implemented my own. :-(

One of the most useful features of AboutDialog is its "View Licenses" button, which will automatically show the licenses used by your application, and which can be extended to show additional licenses if they aren't picked up automatically for you by the underlying LicenseRegistry API.

Business and Marketing

Starting a Business Without any Funding

If you're an indie developer looking for ideas on the business side of things, Pete has a nice Twitter thread here on doing just that. (And no, this isn't a sponsored link -- I just thought some of this advice might help you get your business off the ground, especially if you're just getting started.)

Freemium Tradeoffs

Freemium seems to be an obvious choice as a business model, especially in the app development world. In this 22-minute podcast episode, Patrick Campbell and Hiten Shah discuss some of the tradeoffs of freemium, with some thoughts to consider if you're just starting to head down this road yourself and want some context.

Issue 2 July 10th 2020