Flutter Warsaw Interview With Salih Guler

Before Flutter Warsaw #12, we interviewed our speakers and asked them about their Flutter development path, what was the most challenging for them while using this technology, and who is their biggest Flutter inspiration.

Salih is a Berlin-based Senior Mobile Engineer who is a Google Developer Expert for Flutter and Dart. He likes sharing his knowledge with people by mentoring aspiring developers, blogging, and talking at conferences.

[Mateusz Wojtczak] What is your background as a developer?

[Salih Guler] Normally I am an Android Developer. I have 7 years of android background, and for the last 2,5 years, I’ve been doing Flutter.

Why did you choose to develop in Flutter?

So for me, the story is like I’ve been working for the agency before and they were looking for the cross-platform approach, and the agency was proud of the Google program so they said: “Why don’t you try this new technology?” And we jumped in because we were ok to learn the new technology. Ever sInce I moved to Flutter I saw that my development life went super easy and I felt more relaxed. So what I was doing was android and Flutter together. Now I’m working as a full-time Flutter developer.

What do you like the most about Flutter development?

I think there are two things that make a lot of things easier. I mean one of the things is super straightforward like hot reload. For me as an android developer lowering the build times is really important and really enhances my quality of work. The second thing for me is declarative UI, not only declarative UI but composition -- having your UI code in your programming language more than markup languages and this is something that I really enjoy.

Ok, so that’s what you like the most, and what bothers you the most? What problems had you encountered?

There are two things that bother me the most. One is the packages that are not well maintained and they are still out there and some projects are using them -- that is a bit annoying. When you jump into a new project and you see that some people worked on it already and it’s actually not good because they are using those packages and the feeling is not super nice. And the second thing that bothers me is… I don’t know, I don’t have the second one.

What was the most challenging Flutter project for you so far and why?

My first project was the most challenging because I didn’t know anything about Flutter and we didn’t have any of those awesome packages that we have right now and we needed to write down our own alarm manager and everything so it was not so nice. I needed to learn something that I don’t know like Redux and everything that was challenging for me. I don’t know why but for me BLoC and everything looks quite straightforward but Redux is… I’m not still there, maybe my brain is just broken for Redux. But I would say that my first project was the most challenging one. Even if it was a super easy app actually - it was a meditation app so…

Ok, we’re going to the next question-what are you currently working on?

Right now I am working for a Fintech company that is active in Mexico and our app is in Flutter and I’m working on it right now.

Who inspires you the most in the Flutter Community?

I would say definitely, Simon. Simon is a crazy guy.

Yes. I thought that you might bring him up here.

There are two people that I always talk about. One of them is Simon, the other one is Brian. Brian was the first person that I met from the Community when I went for the first Flutter Meetup. But in general, the productivity of Simon is something that fires me out.

Ok, so the last question is which blogs, books, videos or other learning materials do you recommend for studying Flutter?

I always say the same things but I will say it again. If you are into videos the course from Dr. Angela Yu is actually the best way to start I think. If you like reading I would recommend Flutter documentation because everything you need is in there, and you will learn everything in depth. You won’t be like doing something but not understanding what is happening in the background. You will understand everything, and it’s super easy to follow up, so I would definitely, definitely recommend going through the documentation. And lastly, I am the person who learns everything by simply trying it out. So just find something, get a challenge for yourself, and try to do it. That would be my last suggestion.

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Flutter Warsaw Call For Papers

Flutter Warsaw is now one of the biggest Flutter meetups in Europe, attracting 100+ people for each online event. If you want to join us as a speaker and share your knowledge with others, please fill out the form below.