Why Riverpod Was Built and Why Modern Flutter May No Longer Need It

·1 views

Riverpod was created by Rémi Rousselet as a direct response to a fundamental limitation in Flutter's InheritedWidget system, which offers no mechanism to unsubscribe a widget from a dependency once it has been registered. This flaw meant widgets could continue rebuilding on every ancestor state change even after the condition triggering their dependency turned false, causing unnecessary overhead in larger apps. Rousselet attempted to fix this at the framework level in a 2019 pull request, but Flutter's then-tech lead Ian Hickson closed it, citing concerns about added complexity in Flutter's core build loop. Unable to patch InheritedWidget itself, Rousselet built Riverpod entirely outside the widget tree to work around the constraint. A newer approach called BlocSignal is now presented as a potential successor, aiming to restore InheritedWidget to its original role as a scoped injector while handling state propagation through reactive signals instead.

Read the full story at DEV Community

This is an AI-generated summary. ShortSingh links to the original source for the complete article.

Discussion (0)

A2UI Architecture Lets AI Agents Describe UIs Without Writing Any Code

A2UI is a design architecture that allows language models to build user interfaces on the fly by sending structured data descriptions rather than executable code. Instead of generating JSX or HTML, the agent produces a small JSON object that names a pre-existing client-side component and specifies which values it should display. This approach keeps all executable code on the client, making the model's output validatable against a schema before anything is rendered. The architecture splits responsibilities across three distinct roles: an agent that decides what to show, a protocol that defines the wire format, and a renderer that handles visual presentation. Because components are reused and only values change, descriptions can be cached and the format can be versioned and treated as a formal contract across multiple client implementations.

0 comments Read more at DEV Community

ProgrammingDEV Community ·

How one developer built 160 browser-only tools with no backend using Next.js

A solo developer has published the key engineering decisions behind freetoolsy.com, a collection of 160 browser-based utility tools built with Next.js 14, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. The site serves 399 static pre-rendered pages in English and Turkish from a single codebase, with all URL construction centralised in one file to simplify maintenance. A dynamic sitemap generated directly from route data ensures new tools appear in search indexes immediately after deployment, eliminating a recurring class of stale-sitemap bugs. The developer also built a pre-build registry consistency checker that catches mismatched tool imports in seconds, preventing mid-build failures across a growing 160-tool catalogue. Running entirely client-side with no backend, the tools function offline and require no server logs, data retention policies, or analytics infrastructure.

0 comments Read more at DEV Community

ProgrammingDEV Community ·

Lesser-Known AI Coding Tools Offer Lower Costs and Faster Onboarding in 2026

A 2026 analysis highlights that while GitHub Copilot, Tabnine, and Amazon CodeWhisperer dominate 84% of developer adoption, smaller alternatives like Cody by Sourcegraph, Autimatic, and MutableAI offer comparable or superior features at lower prices. The median monthly price for these lesser-known tools is $15, compared to $23 for Copilot, translating to an average annual saving of $96 per developer. Cody by Sourcegraph, priced at $19 per month, offers a 120,000-token context window — double that of Copilot — with private repository search included as a standard feature. Onboarding times for low-competition tools average 2.3 hours versus 3.2 hours for mainstream platforms, with MutableAI reportedly cutting onboarding time at Stripe from three days to one. Industry surveys suggest 73% of developers are overpaying for mainstream AI tools, despite the availability of focused, lower-cost alternatives with faster support cycles.

0 comments Read more at DEV Community

ProgrammingDEV Community ·

GitHub Permanently Disables SHA-1 for HTTPS and TLS Connections from Sept 15

GitHub disabled SHA-1 support for HTTPS and TLS on github.com and its CDNs on September 15, 2026, ending years of legacy compatibility. The company had signaled the change since April 2026 and conducted an 18-hour brownout on July 14 to alert affected users before the final cutoff. Clients unable to complete a TLS handshake without SHA-1 now receive a connection error when accessing GitHub. The change affects github.com, GitHub Enterprise Cloud, and partner CDNs, but does not impact self-hosted GitHub Enterprise Server installations. Most failures have been traced to outdated infrastructure such as old curl builds, unpatched .NET Framework versions, and stale Docker base images rather than end-user browsers.

0 comments Read more at DEV Community