DEV Community: AasharWahla

Why I would use AppWrite over Firebase?

AasharWahla — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 11:40:56 +0000

When it comes to choosing a backend solution for your web, mobile, or server-side application, there are many options to consider. Two popular platforms in this space are Appwrite and Firebase, but which one is the right fit for your project?

First, let's take a look at what each platform offers. Appwrite is an open-source backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that provides a comprehensive set of services and APIs for building and managing applications. It includes features such as user authentication, database management, file storage, and serverless functions, which can be accessed via RESTful APIs or through client libraries for various programming languages.

Firebase, on the other hand, is a real-time database and messaging platform that was acquired by Google in 2014. It provides a variety of tools and services for building and scaling real-time applications, including a NoSQL document database, messaging and notifications, and analytics.

So, which platform is the best choice for your project? Here are a few factors to consider:

Open-source vs. proprietary: As an open-source platform, Appwrite allows developers to access and modify the source code, and to contribute to the project if they wish. This can be a major advantage for developers who want more control over their backend solution and the ability to customize it to their specific needs. Firebase, on the other hand, is a proprietary platform owned by Google.

Range of features: While Firebase is primarily focused on real-time databases and messaging, Appwrite offers a wider range of features for building and managing web, mobile, and server-side applications. This includes user authentication, file storage, serverless functions, and more.

Pricing model: Appwrite offers a free tier with generous usage limits, as well as paid plans that scale with usage. This can make it a more cost-effective option for developers who don't need all of the features and services provided by Firebase.

Developer community: With a growing user base and active community of developers, Appwrite offers a wealth of resources and support for those using the platform. This can be especially beneficial for developers who are new to the platform or who need help troubleshooting issues.

Ultimately, the decision of which platform to use will depend on the specific needs and goals of your project. Both Appwrite and Firebase have their strengths and can be effective solutions in the right context. If you're still unsure which one is the best fit for your project, it can be helpful to try out both platforms and see which one works best for you.

Starting my App Startup Journey!

AasharWahla — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 15:43:55 +0000

Hi, welcome to my blog. It will hopefully be one of many blogs to come in the future. It is all about the project, which I will build from the ground up. In my Flutter mobile app development career of over two years, I have developed 50+ apps. But there's something different for me this time.

This time I will not be building an app for my client. But I will be developing it for myself.

General Idea

Uptime - A productivity App

Uptime is an app that will focus on productivity. It will be implementing the Pomodoro productivity technique with schedule features.

The point of this app will be its beautiful user interface. It will have a minimal layout and smooth animations.

Current Status

Currently, I have finalized the UI along the side of the architecture, but I still haven't started the development.

Timeline

I am giving myself 30 days from starting from today to build the app and publish it on both google play store and Apple AppStore.

Why get public before release?

I am sharing my story with people who want to see a developer like them start an app from scratch. Alongside that, I also want to document my journey and look at it in the future.

Future

I will be writing one or two blogs every day regarding this project, so I would recommend you to follow me to stay updated.

Follow Me:

On LinkedIn -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/aasharwahla/

On Instagram -> https://instagram.com/aashar.wahla

Roadmap to learn Flutter Efficiently

AasharWahla — Sun, 07 Nov 2021 22:12:33 +0000

I am Aashar Wahla, a full-stack flutter developer. And I have been working with flutter for the better part of two and a half years. Recently I started to post some of my projects on GitHub and LinkedIn, where I have received a lot of queries. And almost ninety percent of them were related to how they can start their journey.

If you are more of a visual learner, you can also see a video on the same topic on my YouTube channel.

So in this blog, I will be sharing my suggestion on how you should learn flutter. I will like to mention here that this may not be the best method, but this is the one that worked for me.

Let's start!

So what is Flutter? You should know what you are getting yourself into. You should spend at least a day or two figuring out why you want to learn flutter in the first place. As this is not a tutorial I will not be telling you in detail, you will have to figure it out yourself.

Now, after getting yourself motivated to learn flutter this is the part where you start the process of learning.

PART-1

So as you already know the flutter is a mobile development framework developed by Google, and it uses Dart language which is also developed by Google.

The first step will be to get yourself to learn and understand dart.

You will have to further divide this first step into three segments.

Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

Let's talk about things which you should cover in the beginner section of part 1:

variables
Data types
And basic data structures like arrays
Operators (logical and arithmetic)
Conditional statement

Now we will move to the second section (intermediate)

Functions (define, call, return type, parameters)
Nested Functions
Classes
Constructor
Getter and Setter
Null safety

And after both of these two sections, we will move to the last section (advanced)

Inheritance
Exception
Collections (list, set)
Asynchronous programming
Streams

PART-2

After clearing part 1, and practicing what you learned in part 1, we will move to part 2. In part 2 we will start the flutter. We will take a detailed look at the flutter, and again like part 1 we will divide part 2 into three segments.

Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

Let's have a look at the beginner section of part 2:

What is hot reload
What is widget
Difference between stateful and stateless widget
Basic widgets which nicely text, row, column, container, stack and positioned.

Section 1 is mostly based on making you understand the concepts, intermediate section is the section in which you will learn to build the UI. And if you will be motivated enough you will start to build yourself.

Scaffold
Material Widgets - like button and dialogs
Layout builder
MediaQuery
ListView, GridView
CupertinoPageScaffold
TextField
Forms

After practicing sections 1 and 2 of part 2 you should start the advanced section which includes:

State management
Routes and Navigation
Localization and Internalization
Animation
Working with JSON
Using community-packages

PART-3

In this part, you will start using third-party services like firebase. You will be considered a flutter developer even without this part, but this is a must-have in my point. In this part, I will only mention two things

rest API
Firebase

I will recommend you to get yourself very well familiar with these two things which will help you a lot in your career.

So what’s next?

This is not all of the things which you should learn, rather this is just a beginning. You will discover new paths, as you will continue your journey.

Very best wishes for the start of your awesome journey.

My Experience Using Flutter Web?

AasharWahla — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 14:56:52 +0000

On March 3, 2021, with the launch of Flutter 2.0 Flutter team officially launched the stable version of Flutter Web. Every flutter fan's and critic's eye was on this launch, including me. I did not jump on the flutter web train immediately, but I waited two months to start my experimentation.

And I would say anything else but use the word disappointment. In my eyes, it didn't deliver on what I expected. They could have done better, but I made myself believe that the web was not the goal of Flutter. It had always been mobile.

What discouraged me from using it?

It was the high loading time when starting the app on chrome for the first time. Hot Reload worked very well, but Hot Restart was not perfect. And when I searched the web for the solution, I was unable to find a satisfactory result.

There is one thing which I would like to mention. I had no prior knowledge of web development before trying flutter web. That may have caused me such chaos.

And in the end, after contacting many lead developers, I tried using loader animation. The way to implement that is to add that in the index.html file. I overcame that problem, but still, I believe that there is no proper method to optimize your flutter web app for search engines. That in itself is a considerable drawback as of right now.

So do I recommend Flutter Web?

As of right now, NO. But having a look at the pace of updates by the Flutter Team, I see a bright future for Flutter Web and the Flutter framework itself.

And I positively stand by my point that Flutter is the next big thing. Or Flutter is the beast but still in development.

You can follow me :

LinkedIn -> AasharWahla

YouTube -> Aashar Wahla

Instagram ->Aashar.Wahla

Why Flutter?

AasharWahla — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 15:38:40 +0000

Why Flutter?
With an experience of almost three years, I feel that I have enough knowledge to make a case here.

If you are in a bit hurry, here is the summary: Just because flutter is outstanding.

For those who are here to read, let me elaborate on my point.

Flutter is a cross-platform development framework and uses Dart. Both of these are projects of Google, but flutter is open-source.

Let's have an experiment, go on to YouTube and search for "Why you should not use flutter?". You will find a ton of videos, often old which will be comparing flutter to the ReactNative. But, react is double the age of flutter. But this is not a comparison blog. It is a blog to convince you why you should choose flutter for your next project, and I am very hopeful that I will succeed.

Performance:

Flutter apps are highly efficient. If not more than exactly like native apps. When you compile your flutter code, it's converted to the native code of that specific platform which gives it an edge over other frameworks.

Hot Reload:

If I would have to name a feature that makes flutter a winner in cross-platform space, it will be Hot Reload. I can not emphasize it enough, but when you are developing a project the difference it makes is gigantic. And in 95% of cases, it works like a breeze.

Single Codebase For Everything:

In general, if you develop an app for iOS and Android, you have to maintain two codebases. But that is not the case with flutter. When you have only one codebase it can slash your maintenance costs and can increase your efficiency. Alongside that, the other very big plus for a single code base is collaboration.

These are not all the points, but you get an idea why it's a better choice than going towards the native route.
You can follow me :

LinkedIn -> AasharWahla

YouTube -> Aashar Wahla

Instagram ->@AasharOfficial

How I got my first Flutter freelance job?

AasharWahla — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 22:59:53 +0000

After self-learning flutter for over six months, I thought about monetizing my skill. But I was a little confused. How to monetize it? Where to provide my services?

But after a week or two of thinking, I made my gig on Fiverr. And after creating my first flutter gig, I got my first 1000$ order. At least that's what I wish would have happened. Undoubtedly, that was not the case.

After creating my gig, I waited, waited, and waited. After 20 days, I did not get any orders and was very disappointed. I started doubting my skills. But after watching a ton of videos on youtube on how to make a perfect Fiverr gig, I updated the gig and got my first 500$ order. But again, that was not the case. I did not have any reviews on my profile, so I had to something to get reviews. So I took my brother's laptop, navigated to the Fiverr website, and placed my first order. After completing the order, I got 5-star reviews 😅 through my hard work.

After this, I got my first order for 250$.

But again, that was not the case. I had to wait for around 5-8 days that I got my first order. And it was drum-roll 50$ 😅. Maybe not what you were expecting after reading through 200 words, but this is the reality. It may seem insignificant to me now, but when I got my first order it was a wave of happiness.

And that is the story of my first freelance order.

If you have any interesting stories, feel free to share them.

You can follow me :

LinkedIn -> AasharWahla

YouTube -> Aashar Wahla

Instagram ->@AasharOfficial

Three months with M1 Macbook Air as a mobile developer

AasharWahla — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 21:04:41 +0000

Being a flutter developer almost for three years, I always had to use virtual machines on my windows laptop to test and run flutter applications on ios device. It was always a terrible experience. It took so much time that sometimes I had to leave it for compiling for more than 15 minutes for a simple app.
But then in November, 2020 Apple released their new MacBooks with an M1 chip.
Initially, I was very skeptical about the real-life performance of the M1 chip, so I waited for around 2 weeks to check some reviews on YouTube and from the Flutter community.
After waiting for two weeks I pushed the trigger and bought the M1 MacBook Air 512GB, and I will call this the best investment in my mobile app development journey.
The battery timing is awesome 8 hrs+ easily, and the performance is through the roof. The 2019 or early 2020 MacBooks are almost useless for development purposes but M1 MacBooks are the gamechanger.
Till now I have developed more than 10 apps using this mac and my experience is awesome. If someone will ask me about the recommendation before getting a new laptop without any doubt I will recommend MacBook Air - M1 without any hesitations.

You can find me on GitHub @ AasharWahla
and on LinkedIn @ AasharWahla