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Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

kivy.org

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Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#41

Post by bartvk »

Apocryphon wrote: post #3

It's quite fascinating to read about mobile crossplatform projects beyond React Native/Flutter/Xamarin and the old Cordova/PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium efforts. There's a surprising amount of them out there- Kivy isn't even the only one in Python, there's also Beeware ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaPzlIJ57dk ) and PyMob. The question is, who actually uses these projects? The people developing them? Hobbyis…

Kivy is used in the embedded world, for example by the ECR-1 and GR-1 synthesizers: https://www.tastychips.nl/

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#42

Post by ivansavz »

bikeshaving wrote: post #35
hardwaresofton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nativescript is fantastic -- I maintain that it's better than React Native because React Native lacks a native JS->platform translation layer and React-land is crazy sauce, and can't really be compared with Flutter (because of how Flutter works), but I still think it's better there even because I'd pick Typescript over Dart, and I don't have to commit so hard to the ecosystem. I've used Nativescript in production and…

The one thing I wonder, can you explain why the Vue wrapper around React Native ( https://github.com/GeekyAnts/vue-native-core/stargazers ) seems to be more popular than Vue NativeScript ( https://github.com/nativescript-vue/nativescript-vue/stargaz... )? I’m confused by why Vue developers of all people would use a Facebook/React stack for native development, so I assumed there had to be some advantage to using React…

My guess would be

> Seamless interop with React Native. Use core React Native components with Vue.js syntax out of the box

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#43

Post by epse »

Apocryphon wrote: post #3

It's quite fascinating to read about mobile crossplatform projects beyond React Native/Flutter/Xamarin and the old Cordova/PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium efforts. There's a surprising amount of them out there- Kivy isn't even the only one in Python, there's also Beeware ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaPzlIJ57dk ) and PyMob. The question is, who actually uses these projects? The people developing them? Hobbyis…

Kivy has been around for a surprisingly long time and has been fairly widely used in industrial software. I used to work for a company that made kivy-based automation software.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#44

Post by hardwaresofton »

baybal2 wrote: post #38
hardwaresofton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nativescript is fantastic -- I maintain that it's better than React Native because React Native lacks a native JS->platform translation layer and React-land is crazy sauce, and can't really be compared with Flutter (because of how Flutter works), but I still think it's better there even because I'd pick Typescript over Dart, and I don't have to commit so hard to the ecosystem. I've used Nativescript in production and…

We used Nativescript in production, and it is unending train wreck. I advise everybody to avoid Nativescript for as long they self-qualify their project as anything serious. The ecosystem, and upstream looks really much like the Wordpress plugin world, and is grossly unprofessional. On the technical side, you will be always struggling with OOM, I/O performance, and the fact that you will be spending MORE time on nati…

Would you mind expanding on the OOM and I/O performance issues you ran into? The ecosystem being less than enterprise-grade was known to me, but I did not run into any OOM or I/O performance issues.

Also, did you try either Flutter or React Native afterwards or go straight to native? Did you find them better?

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#45

Post by hardwaresofton »

Apocryphon wrote: post #29
hardwaresofton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nativescript is fantastic -- I maintain that it's better than React Native because React Native lacks a native JS->platform translation layer and React-land is crazy sauce, and can't really be compared with Flutter (because of how Flutter works), but I still think it's better there even because I'd pick Typescript over Dart, and I don't have to commit so hard to the ecosystem. I've used Nativescript in production and…

Progress is no Facebook/Google/Microsoft, but it's good that there's someone actively working on the framework. Shame they haven't tried to market NativeScript as an alternative to React Native. At least it's better known that other random enterprise cross-platform solutions that seem to exist only on SEO-optimized listicles of cross-platform solutions such as Codename One, RhoMobile, Kony, Framework7, - e.g. https:/…

So Progress actually handed over development to a company called nStudio relatively recently. The proof/PR announcement feels like it's been wiped off the internet but there are traces still[0].

They've been great stewards so far -- improving the codebase and going after long-standing pain points, but it's worth mentioning.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/nativescript/comments/gv968e/progre...

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#46

Post by epse »

pestatije wrote: post #15

A cross-platform framework which does not support the web platform. What's the point? There are so many UI development frameworks, and so many of them are missing the web. This limits the options available enormously, and is forcing programmers into inconvenient and inappropriate solutions.

Hey! I actually did my thesis on porting kivy to the Web and may I tell you, its going to be infinitely easier and faster to just develop your app for Web or hire a good webdev right now.

Nativescript angular can run both Web and native from 1 codebase if you like, but kivy is inherently hard to port

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#47

Post by baybal2 »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #44
baybal2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used Nativescript in production, and it is unending train wreck. I advise everybody to avoid Nativescript for as long they self-qualify their project as anything serious. The ecosystem, and upstream looks really much like the Wordpress plugin world, and is grossly unprofessional. On the technical side, you will be always struggling with OOM, I/O performance, and the fact that you will be spending MORE time on nati…

Would you mind expanding on the OOM and I/O performance issues you ran into? The ecosystem being less than enterprise-grade was known to me, but I did not run into any OOM or I/O performance issues. Also, did you try either Flutter or React Native afterwards or go straight to native? Did you find them better ?

> OOM and I/O performance issues you ran into?

Sure, very simple react and vue apps regularly run into memory leaks upon navigating views, with most memory being leaked in UI part managed by nativescript, and not in the JS logic. NS does not do it's job freeing memory from UI.

The natural JS leakiness gets amplified if a leaked part references any JS object.

Performance suffers whenever any native API gets called from a JS loop, as exporting Java's objects into JS, and accessing them is very resource intensive. The only way around it was to move loops to Java side of the code.

> Also, did you try either Flutter or React Native afterwards or go straight to native? Did you find them better?

Flutter is not much better, though feels to be a bit more professionally done. It's too a memory hog, it's too a CPU hog, and it's still gets way more issues over a native app to warrant its use just for economic reasons.

RN also shares the same Java-JS interop issues as NS.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#48

Post by arcturus17 »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #25
Apocryphon wrote: post #3

It's quite fascinating to read about mobile crossplatform projects beyond React Native/Flutter/Xamarin and the old Cordova/PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium efforts. There's a surprising amount of them out there- Kivy isn't even the only one in Python, there's also Beeware ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaPzlIJ57dk ) and PyMob. The question is, who actually uses these projects? The people developing them? Hobbyis…

Nativescript is fantastic -- I maintain that it's better than React Native because React Native lacks a native JS->platform translation layer and React-land is crazy sauce, and can't really be compared with Flutter (because of how Flutter works), but I still think it's better there even because I'd pick Typescript over Dart, and I don't have to commit so hard to the ecosystem. I've used Nativescript in production and…

> React-land is crazy sauce

In what sense?

I develop my front ends primarily in React, and other than hooks - which a lot of people have adopted anyway, and only extended the lib - the API seems very stable. The 3rd party library ecosystem may be wild because React is superpopular and people are publishing npm packages with half-baked solutions of dubious utility, but there's always a good library or two for 95% of tasks (good: regularly maintainted, fully-featured, well-documented, tested, typed, etc.).

I don't have any experience with RN so I don't know how things are there, but your comment seems to be about the React ecosystem at large and doesn't correspond to my experience at all.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#49

Post by Apocryphon »

baybal2 wrote: post #47
hardwaresofton wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind expanding on the OOM and I/O performance issues you ran into? The ecosystem being less than enterprise-grade was known to me, but I did not run into any OOM or I/O performance issues. Also, did you try either Flutter or React Native afterwards or go straight to native? Did you find them better ?

> OOM and I/O performance issues you ran into? Sure, very simple react and vue apps regularly run into memory leaks upon navigating views, with most memory being leaked in UI part managed by nativescript, and not in the JS logic. NS does not do it's job freeing memory from UI. The natural JS leakiness gets amplified if a leaked part references any JS object. Performance suffers whenever any native API gets called fro…

What kind of app was it?

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#50

Post by yagodragon »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #44
baybal2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used Nativescript in production, and it is unending train wreck. I advise everybody to avoid Nativescript for as long they self-qualify their project as anything serious. The ecosystem, and upstream looks really much like the Wordpress plugin world, and is grossly unprofessional. On the technical side, you will be always struggling with OOM, I/O performance, and the fact that you will be spending MORE time on nati…

Would you mind expanding on the OOM and I/O performance issues you ran into? The ecosystem being less than enterprise-grade was known to me, but I did not run into any OOM or I/O performance issues. Also, did you try either Flutter or React Native afterwards or go straight to native? Did you find them better ?

Flutter provides an amazing developer experience. Dart is a great and modern programming language and built specifically for the needs of this framework. Everything just works out of the box. It's backed by google, it's completely open source, it doesn't need any native dependencies. It's a better version of Qt,RN, NS
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