Channel Update #5 | Dart and Flutter News | What's next for 2021?

Here's a channel update covering some Dart and Flutter news as well as speaking on what the content schedule for 2021 would look like. I want to start by thanking all my subscribers and viewers to the channel. Being a YouTuber in 2020 hasn't been an easy task although there have been milestones worth celebrating.

We are currently over 4.5K subs so thank you all for making this happen! In other news we are close to achieving null-safety in Dart, which at this time sits in beta. Null safety is a language feature that adds an extra layer of protection against null-related errors, by enabling the compiler to detect instances where a null value may be produced and ensure that we handle this in someway.

Check out this Medium article for more information https://medium.com/dartlang/announcing-dart-null-safety-beta-87610fee6730

In light of this, future videos will have null safety enabled by default. The idea here is to encourage the switch to it sooner than later. It won't be a total switch since it's not stable yet, though I suspect the Flutter special event on the 3rd of March 2021 may be a hint that we're close to stable.

I'm also predicting that Flutter Web may reach stable. I wouldn't suggest building large websites or blogs with it though since the documentation states that "_Not every HTML scenario is ideally suited for Flutter at this time. For example, text-rich flow-based content such as blog articles benefit from the document-centric model that the web is built around, rather than the app-centric services that a UI framework like Flutter can deliver. However, you can use Flutter to embed interactive experiences into these websites._"

Expect to see more AngularDart content in 2021 as well as the OverReact library which provides Dart bindings for the React framework. This is used by the Team at Wrike who organised the Dart UP 2020 conference earlier this month.

I conducted a poll on other coding languages/platforms to incorporate for the content schedule for 2021 and based on the results, decided that I'll be mixing up the tech stack moving forward. It will be a slow transition however since I'm still primarily focused on the Dart ecosystem.

I've released a couple of courses here on YouTube with the latest this year being the Recipe Management app with Hasura GraphQL Backend and Flutter. I've had time to reflect on those courses and the engagement it's received and decided to release future courses on other platforms. This will enable a better experience with other features like exercises and quizzes. We'll also be able to improve the level of support users will receive on the course.

I want to thank my current Patreon members for supporting me while creating full-stack Dart and Flutter content. Consider becoming a Patreon to help drive future tutorials and courses.

For beginning Dart developers I have a video and eBook bundle covering the basics of the Dart language with easy-to-consume video lessons and an eBook to supplement those. It's out already at https://bit.ly/getstartedwithdart

I'll be working on a Fullstack Flutter Course due for release early 2021. To learn more, sign up to my email list here https://eepurl.com/gipQBX

And that ends the Channel update for 2020. *See you in 2021*