Thomas Bailey is the author of Flutter for Beginners, 2nd Edition, we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What are your specialist tech area(s)?
Thomas: Flutter, Dart
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was the motivation for writing this book?
Thomas: Read a book on React and saw the preface about writing your own book.
Thought it would be fun to write a book at least once in my lifetime, so added a message to the notice board on the off chance Packt wanted a book on Flutter. Rohit immediately replied and here we are!
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Thomas: Spent 3 years working with Flutter within my education apps company.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Thomas: Took a new job towards the end of the book writing, which has a long probation period. I didn’t feel I could take time out of my day to work on the book (they don’t use Flutter… yet) so had to work evenings/weekends. With two young kids it became a bit of a nightmare, so eventually decided to use some holiday allowance and blitzed the remaining chapters.
Q: What’s the take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Thomas: Flutter has huge potential to transform the app development scene. Native app development costs at least twice as much as Flutter development and brings huge project management challenges (keeping two apps in sync, managing defects, managing two sets of developers who are not fungible), whereas Flutter solves these problems and more.
The community around Flutter is incredibly active, with a wealth of third-party plugins bringing cutting-edge capabilities to your apps.
Plus, the next Google operating system, Fuchsia, is built using Flutter
Exciting times!
Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Thomas: It gives the whole story, from app creation to app release, to someone who has been through the pain so they don’t have to.
It also uses Flutter 2, the newest version of Flutter
Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?
Thomas: Excitement for the framework, and a working knowledge that will allow them to get up and running quickly
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Thomas: First you need to have a passion for tech. Without passion, it’s hard to stay motivated. If you have the passion, then live it. Listen to podcasts, read articles, try new frameworks. And then build something fun. Something you’ve always wanted to create – a soccer game, an app to classify your beers, a social platform for Flutter addicts. Whatever, build it and see what happens.
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Thomas: No
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites, and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Thomas: https://fluttertap.com
Q. How would you describe your Author’s journey with Packt? Will you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Thomas: Packt is great. They understand you have a day job, so gently push you along when you get stuck, and help you out with whatever you need.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Thomas: I’m literally addicted to:
TWIT podcast – brilliant
Ars Technica – Always insightful
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Thomas: Honestly, it’s a struggle if you can’t do it in your work time. You need to put aside serious chunks of time because it takes a while to get your brain into book writing mode. If you have a full-time job and young kids then you’ll need a kind wife!
So check with your work that they are happy for you to perhaps do the book as your 10% time, or give you occasional time to work on the book.
Q. What is the one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Thomas: Listen to your reviewer in chapter 1. Otherwise, you’ll make the same mistake in every subsequent chapter. (Mine was not putting proper image titles!)
You can find Thomas’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
