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“Flutter team members don't actually use Flutter.” (as per the website).

This could explain a lot.




Very rarely do the people working full time on a framework/tool also use that framework/tool in a non-toy setting. They aren't working two full time jobs after all.


Always, always, dogfood what you produce. The number one way devs cease making products people care to use is by not using what they make.


I think there should be a distinction here. E.g. if you work on a browser, possibly implementing parts of image loading, or javascript parser, etc.

Are you consider a dogfooder if you use the browser? or do you need to lots of write Javascript yourself, etc. to be considered "a user of your product"?

Typically, these are two different sets of people.

So, I don't buy the "always, always" part


I suppose this problem is timeless, back when I was active in the PHP community it was a long-running joke that people who "graduated" to committing to the actual php source (in C) were not doing web development work anymore. And I suppose it was actually true for the majority. On the other hand, designing language features wasn't really related to using it for web work.


Dogfooding doesn't mean you know how to build it. Take for example the graphics engineers on Unreal Engine. They almost certainly know how to fly around test zones or make stress scenarios, but they aren't going to be building large, detailed, open world maps like will be seen in the next Cyberpunk or whatever. And it's not reasonable to expect that of them, either.

Nor are the people doing UI work in Blender going to be able to make Big Bunny.

Nor are the people working on fusion360's parametric system going to build complex mechanical-fluid simulation scenarios.

Flutter is simpler than those, sure, but even in that world you have people that do nothing but fonts & text for their entire careers. They'll know how to do text stuff in flutter, but they'd be lost if you demanded they make a tiktok clone.


I'm a man who once made medical software for pregnant women. There's no point being dogmatic.


I'm sure all those devs working on fighter jet's software would love to but alas...


> This could explain a lot.

Only if you're oblivious to the day-to-day activities of a software project. They work on building a framework, not on using said said framework to build something entirely different that has no bearing in how to build a framework.


I think the experience of building something atop a framework should absolutely have bearing on how to build the underlying framework.


> I think the experience of building something atop a framework should absolutely have bearing on how to build the underlying framework.

You'd be wrong. If your job is maintaining a framework then your focus is on internal details, and how the framework is used would be limited to your concerns in putting up test sets.

Believing that working on a framework gives you equivalent or even similar experience to using said framework in professional settings is a kin to believing that all mechanics are excellent drivers just because they work on cars.


Django comes to my mind here. The people behind the framwork had real experience and needs in web publication.


Commenters point is that this is normal


But not necessarily optimal.


It does, however, have bearing. Despite how common the practice may be in the corporate world, developing a framework without any regard to the user experience thereof is pretty suboptimal




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