News
Introducing a Brand New Pub.dev
Big changes just dropped on pub.dev, including new scoring metrics! Google Product Manager Michael Thomsen covers all of the details in this Medium post.
Code Craft
Null Safety in Dart
I know this isn't the first time I've mentioned null safety (and it probably won't be the last!), but this discussion of the upcoming Dart language change by Kevin Moore and Bob Nystrom, both members of Google's Dart team, offers a peek behind the scenes of its implementation. A very worthwhile discussion to watch if you're following this new language development.
Tutorials
Understanding Layout Constraints
This newly-updated article by the Flutter team covers a lot of ground when it comes to understanding layout constraints in Flutter UI code. I especially appreciated the emphasis on a good rule of thumb to keep in mind: "Constraints go down. Sizes go up. Parent sets position." If you struggle keeping those yellow and black zebra stripes out of your UI, this article is worth a read.
Guard Clauses
Filip Hracek just published a nice article making the case for guard clauses in your code, with examples in Dart. If you're not familiar with guard clauses or want a reminder of why they might be useful, a quick read of Filip's post here will be time well-spent.
Architecture
Flutter Performance Considerations vs React and JS in browser and Xamarin.Forms
Even though this is a month old now, this thread is a great reminder on just how good Flutter performance really is, especially when compared to some of the alternatives.
Business and Marketing
20 Years of Product Management in 25 Minutes
I know most of the audience for this newsletter consists of developers, but for those of you working in small teams or as indie developers responsible for both coding AND defining the products you're building, this presentation by Dave Wascha might come in handy if you want to understand more deeply the "product" side of your business.
// From Mark
Welcome to Week 3!
My introductory comment here is a bit shorter than normal, with many "thanks" to my being caught in the middle of Apple's App Store review (and appeals!) process today.
Things continue to move quickly in the Flutter world, and this week's issue covers some very recent news (hello, pub.dev!), as well as tutorials and articles which I found personally interesting. I hope you'll agree.
Have a happy Flutter week!
Mark Winters