Flutter For Dummies

Chapter 2

Setting Up Your Computer for Mobile App Development

IN THIS CHAPTER

Installing Dart and Flutter

Installing a development environment

Mimicking mobile devices on your laptop computer

Archimedes lived in ancient Greece during the second century BCE. His work in the early development of mathematics was groundbreaking. In the peace and quiet of his own bathtub, he chanced upon an important formula — a formula to describe the relationship between his weight and the amount of water his body displaced. Upon making this discovery, he yelled “Eureka!” and jumped out of the tub to tell everyone in his city. Tunic or no tunic, Archimedes wanted all Greeks to share in his joy.

Jump forward roughly 2200 years. I’m 12 years old. In a conversation about moving some furniture, my father quotes Archimedes: “Give me a big enough lever, and I can move the world.” I try to picture this. Here’s Earth, hanging out in space, and there’s a long, long stick with a curl at the bottom. The curl reaches under the big planet and nudges it to a new position.

Stinker that I was, I saw three problems with this scenario. First, how would you anchor the bottom of the lever at a fixed point in empty space? ...