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Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

github.com

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Re: Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

#21

Post by rFlex »

mappu wrote: post #20
rFlex wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the Valdi's authors here. It's using native views under the hood, like React Native, and there are 3 modes of compilation/execution for the TS source. It can be interpreted from JS (TS compiled to minified JS source), interpreted from JS bytecode (TS compiled to JS source, minified, then compiled to JS bytecode ahead of time), or compiled to native code directly (TS compiled to C ahead of time).

An AOT TS -> C compiler is fantastic - how much of the language is supported, what are the limitations on TS support? I assume highly dynamic stuff and eval is out-of-scope?

Most of the TS language is supported, things that are not can be considered bugs that we need to fix. Eval is supported but it won't be able to capture variables outside of the eval string itself. We took a reverse approach than most other TS to native compiler projects: we wanted the compiler to be as compatible with JS as possible, at the expense of reducing performance initially, to make it possible to adopt the native compiler incrementally at scale.

There are significant trade-offs with this compiler at the moment: it uses much more binary size than minified JS or JS bytecode, and performance improvements goes from 2x to sometimes zero. It's a work-in-progress, it's pretty far along in what it supports, but its value-proposition is not yet where it needs to be.

Re: Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

#23

Post by bearjaws »

Working at a company that uses react-native I wish nothing more than for the end of app stores and differing platform languages.

We're heavily considering just having a website next year with a mobile app using webview, and then native code for the native notifications, GPS and healthkit / health connect.

I feel like AI is changing the equation, its nearly better to write your business UI 3 times one for each platform.

Re: Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

#24

Post by FlamingMoe »

bearjaws wrote: post #23

Working at a company that uses react-native I wish nothing more than for the end of app stores and differing platform languages. We're heavily considering just having a website next year with a mobile app using webview, and then native code for the native notifications, GPS and healthkit / health connect. I feel like AI is changing the equation, its nearly better to write your business UI 3 times one for each platfor…

Wholeheartedly agree.

Re: Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

#26

Post by DecoPerson »

bearjaws wrote: post #23

Working at a company that uses react-native I wish nothing more than for the end of app stores and differing platform languages. We're heavily considering just having a website next year with a mobile app using webview, and then native code for the native notifications, GPS and healthkit / health connect. I feel like AI is changing the equation, its nearly better to write your business UI 3 times one for each platfor…

I did this and never looked back.

It’s called a “WebView app” and you can get a really good experience on all platforms using them. Just:

- don’t make any crazy decisions on your fundamental UI components, like breadcrumbs, select dropdowns, etc

- add a few platform-specific specialisations to those same components, to make them feel a bit more familiar, such as button styling, or using a self-simplifying back-stack on Android

- test to make sure your webview matches the native browser’s behaviour where it matters. For example, sliding up the view when the keyboard is opened on mobile, navigating back & forth with edge-swipes on iOS, etc

I also went the extra step and got service workers working, for a basic offline experience, and added a native auto network diagnostic tool that runs on app startup and checks “Can reach local network” “Can reach internet (1.1.1.1)” “Can resolve our app’s domain” etc etc, so users can share where it failed to get quicker support. But this is an app for small-to-medium businesses, not consumer-facing, and the HTML5 part is served from the server and cached. I haven’t thought much about what you might need to do additionally for a consumer app, or a local-first app.

Re: Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

#27

Post by arcanemachiner »

DecoPerson wrote: post #26
bearjaws wrote: post #23

Working at a company that uses react-native I wish nothing more than for the end of app stores and differing platform languages. We're heavily considering just having a website next year with a mobile app using webview, and then native code for the native notifications, GPS and healthkit / health connect. I feel like AI is changing the equation, its nearly better to write your business UI 3 times one for each platfor…

I did this and never looked back. It’s called a “WebView app” and you can get a really good experience on all platforms using them. Just: - don’t make any crazy decisions on your fundamental UI components, like breadcrumbs, select dropdowns, etc - add a few platform-specific specialisations to those same components, to make them feel a bit more familiar, such as button styling, or using a self-simplifying back-stack…

I made a (hobby) project that utilized this strategy (Flutter + wrapped webview app), and it honestly seems like the way to go for my needs.

Re: Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

#28

Post by cyberax »

bearjaws wrote: post #23

Working at a company that uses react-native I wish nothing more than for the end of app stores and differing platform languages. We're heavily considering just having a website next year with a mobile app using webview, and then native code for the native notifications, GPS and healthkit / health connect. I feel like AI is changing the equation, its nearly better to write your business UI 3 times one for each platfor…

That. And specifically, fuck Apple and their prohibition on JITs.

We have a React Native app that shares some code with a webapp, and that needs to do some geometry processing. So we're constantly playing the game of "will it interpret quick enough". Everything works fine in browsers, but in a RN app it often slows down to unusable speeds.

Re: Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

#29

Post by sebmellen »

DecoPerson wrote: post #26
bearjaws wrote: post #23

Working at a company that uses react-native I wish nothing more than for the end of app stores and differing platform languages. We're heavily considering just having a website next year with a mobile app using webview, and then native code for the native notifications, GPS and healthkit / health connect. I feel like AI is changing the equation, its nearly better to write your business UI 3 times one for each platfor…

I did this and never looked back. It’s called a “WebView app” and you can get a really good experience on all platforms using them. Just: - don’t make any crazy decisions on your fundamental UI components, like breadcrumbs, select dropdowns, etc - add a few platform-specific specialisations to those same components, to make them feel a bit more familiar, such as button styling, or using a self-simplifying back-stack…

Works until you need complex native code for things like automatic image capture assisted by a bounding model.

Re: Valdi – A cross-platform UI framework that delivers native performance

#30

Post by sgc »

sans_souse wrote: post #16
Neywiny wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope it has "load spam ads directly into the list the user was about to touch somehow the millisecond before they touch it using magical force field technology so they click the wrong thing every time" functionality. I've been missing that in my apps

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