Mobile Programming (MP)

Workshop Agenda

1. Review key concepts and common mistakes in Dart
2. Explore Null Safety and data modeling
3. Review asynchronous programming (Future / async / await)
4. Set up the Flutter development environment and use flutter doctor
5. Troubleshoot common installation issues (Gradle, access restrictions, SDK Tools)
6. Understand the Flutter project directory structure and pubspec.yaml
7. Compare Hot Reload and Hot Restart
8. Review and run the workshop starter code

Mobile Programming (MP)

1. Null Safety in Practice

String title = "Mobile Programming"; // Non-nullable
String? nullableName;                // Nullable

void greetUser(String? name) {
  // Use ?? to provide a default value
  final cleanName = name?.trim() ?? "Guest student";
  print("Hello $cleanName");
}

• Golden rule: Avoid using the ! (null assertion) operator whenever possible. Use it only when you are completely certain that the value is not null.

Mobile Programming (MP)

2. Environment Setup and Troubleshooting with Flutter Doctor

# Check the complete development environment status
flutter doctor -v

# Accept Android licenses
flutter doctor --android-licenses

Mobile Programming (MP)

3. Common Command-Line Interface (CLI) Commands

# Create a new project
flutter create mp_starter_app

# Fetch packages declared in pubspec.yaml
flutter pub get

# List available emulators and connected devices
flutter devices

# Run the project
flutter run

Mobile Programming (MP)

4. Hot Reload vs. Hot Restart

• Hot Reload (key r):
  • Injects code changes into the Dart virtual machine, usually in less than a second.
  • Preserves the current application state (existing variable values are not cleared).
• Hot Restart (key R):
  • Restarts the application from the main() function.
  • Resets the state and returns variables to their initial values. This is useful when changing initState or global variables.