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Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

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Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#71
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flutter is not bad, but I hesitate diving into it based upon who controls it. Using a Google product feels like you're in constant threat of it just disappearing. It also still has all the remnants of mobile and fingers and not desktop and mouse. Support for improving this is non-existent in my experience.

Why conflate Google's customer facing products with their OSS technology contributions? It seems a weird comparison to make, as if their sales and marketing departments are the ones behind technology decisions. Angular came out of Google and hasn't gone anywhere. Also GoLang.. even GWT was supported well past its prime and is now maintained by the community. What evidence is there that they abandon languages and fram…

> Angular came out of Google and hasn't gone anywhere.

I think you actually answered your own question.

The difference is that Angular was already a hugely adopted and relatively simple piece of technology (the difference between a JavaScript framework and all the moving parts and pieces of Flutter/Dart is huge)

Since the latter doesn’t have anywhere near the investment outside Google it’s not a fair comparison. The fear that if Google drops it, it will die are legitimate.

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#72
post #69

Nice, I really enjoyed Flutter's approach to building UI, but I didn't really care for Dart all that much. In theory shouldn't it be possible to create a programming language specifically for UI? Something that can be interfaced with from any major programming language. Kinda like protobuf with its IDL format, but instead of defining data, it's declaring user interfaces. Is that a crazy or stupid idea? QT and XAML co…

you mean CSS?

Kind of, but CSS is only 1/2 of a UI language, and it’s specific to the web.

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#73
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flutter is not bad, but I hesitate diving into it based upon who controls it. Using a Google product feels like you're in constant threat of it just disappearing. It also still has all the remnants of mobile and fingers and not desktop and mouse. Support for improving this is non-existent in my experience.

Why conflate Google's customer facing products with their OSS technology contributions? It seems a weird comparison to make, as if their sales and marketing departments are the ones behind technology decisions. Angular came out of Google and hasn't gone anywhere. Also GoLang.. even GWT was supported well past its prime and is now maintained by the community. What evidence is there that they abandon languages and fram…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#74

Nice, I really enjoyed Flutter's approach to building UI, but I didn't really care for Dart all that much. In theory shouldn't it be possible to create a programming language specifically for UI? Something that can be interfaced with from any major programming language. Kinda like protobuf with its IDL format, but instead of defining data, it's declaring user interfaces. Is that a crazy or stupid idea? QT and XAML co…

Qt has some commercial license only components, but the majority is open-source. In fact, the KDE Free Qt Foundation ensures that the framework is always available under GPL+LGPLv3.[0]

Anyway, there are some languages specifically desgined for making UIs. Qt has one of those, QML[1]. It's a "simple" language made precisely for UI development, that can be wired to C++, allowing you to write business logic in a general language, while keeping UI focused.

More interestingly, though, is Slint[2]. The language (and company behind it) was made by ex-QML devs which sought to improve the design, avoiding some pitfalls that QML ended up running into. It's core is written in Rust, but there are bindings for C++, JS and now Python too. They also have a focus on embedded devices, which ends up translating to always having good performance and memory footprint in mind, which is neat.

One of Slint's dev is ogoffart: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ogoffart

[0]: https://www.qt.io/faq/tag/qt-open-source-licensing [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML [2]: https://slint.dev

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#75
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flutter is not bad, but I hesitate diving into it based upon who controls it. Using a Google product feels like you're in constant threat of it just disappearing. It also still has all the remnants of mobile and fingers and not desktop and mouse. Support for improving this is non-existent in my experience.

Why conflate Google's customer facing products with their OSS technology contributions? It seems a weird comparison to make, as if their sales and marketing departments are the ones behind technology decisions. Angular came out of Google and hasn't gone anywhere. Also GoLang.. even GWT was supported well past its prime and is now maintained by the community. What evidence is there that they abandon languages and fram…

> Why conflate Google's customer facing products with their OSS technology contributions?

In the .NET block down the street, we deal with this kind of nonsense almost daily :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41195650

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#76
post #74

Nice, I really enjoyed Flutter's approach to building UI, but I didn't really care for Dart all that much. In theory shouldn't it be possible to create a programming language specifically for UI? Something that can be interfaced with from any major programming language. Kinda like protobuf with its IDL format, but instead of defining data, it's declaring user interfaces. Is that a crazy or stupid idea? QT and XAML co…

Qt has some commercial license only components, but the majority is open-source. In fact, the KDE Free Qt Foundation ensures that the framework is always available under GPL+LGPLv3.[0] Anyway, there are some languages specifically desgined for making UIs. Qt has one of those, QML[1]. It's a "simple" language made precisely for UI development, that can be wired to C++, allowing you to write business logic in a general…

Wow slint is almost exactly what I was imagining, thanks!

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#77
post #65

Nice, I really enjoyed Flutter's approach to building UI, but I didn't really care for Dart all that much. In theory shouldn't it be possible to create a programming language specifically for UI? Something that can be interfaced with from any major programming language. Kinda like protobuf with its IDL format, but instead of defining data, it's declaring user interfaces. Is that a crazy or stupid idea? QT and XAML co…

I’m curious what you don’t like about Dart? I thought I wouldn’t like it but I’ve found it surprisingly nice.

I don't have any well-considered opinions about it, moreso that on a gut level it felt like java or c#. It was a while ago that I tried it, and I can't recall the exact details.

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#78

Nice, I really enjoyed Flutter's approach to building UI, but I didn't really care for Dart all that much. In theory shouldn't it be possible to create a programming language specifically for UI? Something that can be interfaced with from any major programming language. Kinda like protobuf with its IDL format, but instead of defining data, it's declaring user interfaces. Is that a crazy or stupid idea? QT and XAML co…

XAML is very much alive within Avalonia[0], Uno[1] and MAUI[2] (not to mention WPF) :)

There is support and growing popularity for declarative UI defined in C#[3] and F#[4] instead though.

[0]: https://docs.avaloniaui.net/docs/basics/user-interface/intro...

[1]: https://platform.uno/docs/articles/getting-started/counterap...

[2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/xaml/fundament...

[3]: https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia.Markup.Declarative

[4]: https://github.com/fsprojects/Avalonia.FuncUI

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#79
post #5

I have been using this to build an app[0] for the last couple of years and I want to say that it has been a pleasure to use, there are some wrinkles but overall I have been very happy with the experience. Upgrading from v1 to v2 was not too difficult and v2 is a significant upgrade with lots of useful features, massively improved codegen experience and support for tokio async were the big gamechangers for me. Writing…

Looks nice. What UI design system did you use here if I can ask?

Re: Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter

#80
post #65

Nice, I really enjoyed Flutter's approach to building UI, but I didn't really care for Dart all that much. In theory shouldn't it be possible to create a programming language specifically for UI? Something that can be interfaced with from any major programming language. Kinda like protobuf with its IDL format, but instead of defining data, it's declaring user interfaces. Is that a crazy or stupid idea? QT and XAML co…

I’m curious what you don’t like about Dart? I thought I wouldn’t like it but I’ve found it surprisingly nice.

Off the top of my head:

1) Types on the left

2) Statement, not expression, based

3) No privacy modifiers (aka, underscores everywhere)

4) required semicolons

5) no language support for json (de)serialization, or, json boilerplate everywhere (yikes)

I've tried to get into Flutter 3x now, and each time Dart has defeated me.

Flutter is quite good though, so take the good with the bad, I just can't stomach Dart (yet).

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