HomeAuthor InterviewsInterview with Simone Alessandria

Interview with Simone Alessandria

Simone Alessandria is the author of Google Flutter 2 Cookbook , we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.

Q: What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?

Simone: Flutter, ASP.NET, Web Frameworks.

Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?

Simone: I was contacted through Linkedin by an enthusiastic acquisition editor at Packt, after producing a few Flutter courses on Pluralsight.

Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?

Simone: I’ve been working with Flutter since before its final release, when it was still in beta. For this particular book the most interesting research was the machine learning part. Being able to integrate machine learning algorithms in a mobile device is an incredible progress for apps!
I’d say the research for this book took approximately three months.

Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?

Simone: The main challenge was that Flutter 2 was released after all chapters in the book had already been written. I had to upgrade the text and code for most of the chapters.

Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?

Simone: There have been several technologies that tried to build a framework that could work for every device. I believe Flutter has finally hit the target: it’s loved by a strong community, solidly gaining traction in the business world and getting better and better. I thing Flutter is headed to a bright future.

Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?

Simone: The main advantage of this book is its layout: as it’s mostly made of self-contained recipes, everyone can find a working example for hundreds of different scenarios. This makes it perfect for people who want to get a specific example to use for their projects.

Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?

Simone: Flutter is a solid, relatively easy to learn framework, that can be used not only for mobile apps, but also for the web and desktop.

Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?

Simone: while (learningLevel < enough) { write(lotsOfCode); makeMistakes(); fixMistakes(); }

Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?

Simone: Not yet.

Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?

Simone: The best resource to start learning flutter is the official web site: flutter.dev

Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?

Simone: While writing a tech book is challenging and takes a long time, all the people at Packt have shown patience, understanding and were extremely professional. I definitely recommend Packt to any aspiring author.

Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?

Simone: I’m an MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer), and belong to several Flutter groups on Linkedin. Before the sanitary crisis, I also attended and spoke at live conferences in Italy, where I live and work.

Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?

Simone: There are so many resources out there. For Flutter, a resource I strongly recommend is the “Widget of the week” channel on YouTube.

Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?

Simone: My approach is: I write the objectives of a chapter (or recipe for the “Flutter Cookbook”), then architect an app that contains the objectives. After completing the app, I write the actual text to explain the main takeaways of the code.

Q. What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?

Simone: Be consistent. Allocate a realistic amount of time every day to write, and then follow your schedule. It’s a bit like a diet 😉

You can find Simone’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here

Google Flutter 2 Cookbook is Available on Amazon.com