Which areas of Flutter were/are hard to learn? (to help with docs)

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Seth Ladd

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Nov 14, 2016, 2:01:17 PM11/14/16
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Hello Flutter developers!

We're kicking off a documentation sprint, and we'd like to know: What areas of Flutter were/are hard to learn/understand? and asked another way: Which areas of Flutter are you not confident in teaching to others?


With your feedback, we'll prioritize doc efforts for the remaining of Q4.


Thanks everyone!

Seth

Jason Campbell

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Nov 14, 2016, 5:19:10 PM11/14/16
to Flutter Dev
In no particular order, some of these might be addressed by current documentation.
  • Keys: when do you use them (and what kind) and how do they work.
  • Best practice to prevent deeply nested and confusing widget trees.
  • Best practice for sharing state across widgets.
  • Passing callbacks down the widget tree can get confusing depending on the complexity of your application
I'm sure I'll have more if I think some more...

Seth Ladd

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Nov 14, 2016, 5:27:24 PM11/14/16
to Jason Campbell, Flutter Dev
Great, thanks for the feedback!

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kelpenstien

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Nov 22, 2016, 8:27:36 PM11/22/16
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* An overview of the build process (highlighting the high-level steps and the scripts involved) would probably help people help themselves when things don't quite go as expected. 

* The core developer group setup - i.e. what emulator/handset/sku you gals and guys are using when developing would be nice. This might help people with rendering issues/etc. have a point of reference when digging deeper (for example - it might help folk come to terms with gpus with non-standard opengl implementations).

Linda Lawton

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Nov 23, 2016, 6:36:34 AM11/23/16
to Flutter Dev
How about something broader for new developers set them on the right path so to speak.

Coding standards,  naming conversions ...

Jason Campbell

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Nov 23, 2016, 1:43:39 PM11/23/16
to Linda Lawton, Flutter Dev
On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 3:36 AM, Linda Lawton <laur...@gmail.com> wrote:
How about something broader for new developers set them on the right path so to speak.

Coding standards,  naming conversions ...

I think this would be helpful to seasoned developers as well.

Maybe some kind of glossary of terms? It takes some time to develop the Flutter vocabulary to effectively build up search terms and know what to look for in the docs and examples. Anything to help speed that up.

Mike Perrotte

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Nov 23, 2016, 3:33:10 PM11/23/16
to Flutter Dev

Widget composition: usual patterns.
- The current examples are good at allowing a developer to gleen how to use widgets, but not why certain things are being done a certain way. I'm not new to developing or programming but discovering these 'usual patterns' has been a real struggle.

Seth Ladd

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Nov 28, 2016, 12:25:37 PM11/28/16
to kelpenstien, Flutter Dev
On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 5:27 PM, kelpenstien <shell...@gmail.com> wrote:
* An overview of the build process (highlighting the high-level steps and the scripts involved) would probably help people help themselves when things don't quite go as expected. 

Good idea. This would be specific to the google3 workflow, so if you can't find the doc you want at go/flutter-google3, please do open a doc request here: go/flutter-bug
 

* The core developer group setup - i.e. what emulator/handset/sku you gals and guys are using when developing would be nice. This might help people with rendering issues/etc. have a point of reference when digging deeper (for example - it might help folk come to terms with gpus with non-standard opengl implementations).

Once we have a standard set of devices/emulators we're smoke testing on, we should publish that list.
 


On Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 4:01:17 AM UTC+9, Seth Ladd wrote:
Hello Flutter developers!

We're kicking off a documentation sprint, and we'd like to know: What areas of Flutter were/are hard to learn/understand? and asked another way: Which areas of Flutter are you not confident in teaching to others?


With your feedback, we'll prioritize doc efforts for the remaining of Q4.


Thanks everyone!

Seth

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Seth Ladd

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Nov 28, 2016, 12:27:09 PM11/28/16
to Linda Lawton, Flutter Dev
On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 3:36 AM, Linda Lawton <laur...@gmail.com> wrote:
How about something broader for new developers set them on the right path so to speak.

Coding standards,  naming conversions ...

Agreed. I opened https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/7044 to track, please add items you'd like to see in "Effective Flutter".

Thanks for the feedback!
 



On Monday, November 14, 2016 at 8:01:17 PM UTC+1, Seth Ladd wrote:
Hello Flutter developers!

We're kicking off a documentation sprint, and we'd like to know: What areas of Flutter were/are hard to learn/understand? and asked another way: Which areas of Flutter are you not confident in teaching to others?


With your feedback, we'll prioritize doc efforts for the remaining of Q4.


Thanks everyone!

Seth

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Seth Ladd

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Nov 28, 2016, 12:30:58 PM11/28/16
to Mike Perrotte, Flutter Dev
On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 12:33 PM, Mike Perrotte <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:

Widget composition: usual patterns.
- The current examples are good at allowing a developer to gleen how to use widgets, but not why certain things are being done a certain way. I'm not new to developing or programming but discovering these 'usual patterns' has been a real struggle.

Thanks for that feedback. We hope to create a "Thinking in Flutter" which might help (https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/6651) But please do open a doc request if you ran into a pattern that wasn't clear.

Meanwhile, if you have a question about why a particular sample was written the way it was, please don't hesitate to send the question to our mailing list. We need to collect the "usual patterns" for our docs :)
 


On Monday, 14 November 2016 14:01:17 UTC-5, Seth Ladd wrote:
Hello Flutter developers!

We're kicking off a documentation sprint, and we'd like to know: What areas of Flutter were/are hard to learn/understand? and asked another way: Which areas of Flutter are you not confident in teaching to others?


With your feedback, we'll prioritize doc efforts for the remaining of Q4.


Thanks everyone!

Seth

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Mike Perrotte

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Dec 13, 2016, 12:56:43 PM12/13/16
to Flutter Dev
More additions:
 - Routes; how to use Navigator and how to use `MaterialApp`'s `routes` property.
 - Forms; how to create them submit them, validate them.


On Monday, 14 November 2016 14:01:17 UTC-5, Seth Ladd wrote:

Seth Ladd

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Dec 13, 2016, 4:30:52 PM12/13/16
to Mike Perrotte, Flutter Dev

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