This week in Flutter #130: Useful code-generating packages for Flutter
Code generation is a powerful tool that can help you develop faster and avoid trivial mistakes. It can also be a double-edged sword. It can be hard to understand what’s going on when you have to debug generated code. It can also be hard to maintain the generated code if you need to change it. Anna Leushchenko, a Flutter and Dart GDE, has a list of code-generating packages that she uses daily. She explains how she uses them and why they are useful.
- Michele Volpato
🧑💻 Development in Flutter
GitHub Copilot: Tips and Tricks for Flutter Devs
I am still evaluating Copilot for Flutter development, and I have mixed results. It’s great for generating documentation. It’s good for boilerplate code, but that is what code generation is for. The environmental impact of LLM is what keeps me from using it more, and I am looking forward to running it locally. Andrea did a more in-depth analysis of Copilot, and he has some tips and tricks to share.
🗄 Backend for Flutter developers
Communicate with Microsoft SQL Server that works on Flutter app compiled for multiple platforms
by Brian Ting
There seems to be a lack of good packages to connect to SQL Server from Flutter. Brian shows how to write your own API backend as middleware to connect to SQL Server from Flutter.
Flutter & GraphQL: Connecting a Flutter App to an AWS AppSync API Built with CDK
by Mo Malaka
The author demonstrates how to set up a GraphQL API backend using AWS AppSync using the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) and the Amplify Data construct, which was recently released by AWS Amplify. Then, using the Amplify Flutter library, he will show how to link a Flutter application to that API.
🎥 Flutter videos
UI tests #DecodingFlutter
Golden tests, Finder tests, and PaintPattern tests. Wait, what are PaintPattern tests? Watch this video to find out!
Observable Flutter #32: flame_behaviors
with Craig Labenz
Explore the flame_behaviors package in Flutter. Learn how to add behaviors to entities to add a behavioral aspect to them.
👨💻 Software engineering
Managing Technical Debt
How do you start to pay down tech debt? Measure, Agree on a tech debt allocation, and Monitor and adjust regularly.
Becoming a go-to person gets you promoted. Here’s how to do it as a software engineer
“To reach the Senior level, you need to increase your scope, impact, and ownership. One of the best ways to do that is to become a “go-to” person or an expert. You could be the “database expert”, “Python expert”, “caching expert”, “frontend expert”, “Typescript expert”, etc.”
Engineering progression for humans
On a similar note to the previous article, Sophie talks about the different levels of seniority in engineering and how to progress in your career, answering questions like “What does an engineering career in a larger organisation look like? What even is a staff engineer? How long should you stay at the same company?”
That’s it for this week.
If you want to comment on any of this week’s entries, you can do it in the comment section below.
Have a bug-free week,
- Michele Volpato
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