Flutter among others

There are a multitude of technologies for developing cross-platform applications from a single codebase. They include PhoneGap, Cordova, Ionic, Xamarin, Koni, React Native, Flutter and many others. Many of them use web concepts to interface with our devices. The web is the most common development, so there was nothing easier than incorporating it into mobile applications and save time on development with the knowledge we already had. However, these technologies cause performance losses that impact the user experience making it unpleasant to use.

Cross-platform, but Native cross-platform

Flutter is an open-source framework like the well-known ReactJS, Angular or Vue, but based on the Dart programming language, both developed by Google. What makes it special? It is native cross-platform, which means that the rendering after compilation is a binary program that can communicate with the target system. Flutter is able to compile for Android (mobile and wear), iOS, but also for the Web and Windows, MacOS and Linux operating systems in a stable way since version 3. The native cross-platform aspect makes the runtime performance almost the same as native system-specific developments.

Efficiency of compilation

Achieving such performance is made possible by the Dart programming language which has several compilation modes: JIT (Just-In-Time) and AOT (Ahead-Of-Time).

The JIT method allows the use of the debugging tools implemented in the Dart virtual machine, as well as the hot-reload function allowing changes to be updated during the development phase without restarting the compilation of the project.

The hot-reload function is a key feature of Dart. During development with Flutter, it allows the graphical interface to be updated and the visual or business rules made available instantly.

The AOT method is a production version: optimised, compile-time processing and run-time processing.

The code is compiled in machine language and no longer passes through the virtual machine to execute instructions.