Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 28 posts

Re: Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

#3

Post by ovenpasta »

switchbak wrote: post #2

Why would anyone choose XML for a modern GUI layout in 2026? That seems like a mis-step.

Author here, the library itself is pure Ada, the XML UI is just a convenience layer on top of it, there is a code generator that picks it and writes ada packages. happy to hear better alternatives!

Re: Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

#4

Post by nicoburns »

I'm going to ask the obvious question: why ADA?

---

My framework (Dioxus Native - https://github.com/dioxuslabs/blitz) would fit quite nicely into your comparison table:

- Compiles to self-contained OS-native app bundle

- - GPU or CPU rendering

- Windows 10+ / macOS / Linux / mobile / wasm / (+ web DOM with Dioxus Web)

- Rust

- Memory safety: borrow checked

- Styling: CSS (support matrix: https://blitz.is/status/css)

Re: Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

#5

Post by ovenpasta »

nicoburns wrote: post #4

I'm going to ask the obvious question: why ADA? --- My framework (Dioxus Native - https://github.com/dioxuslabs/blitz ) would fit quite nicely into your comparison table: - Compiles to self-contained OS-native app bundle - - GPU or CPU rendering - Windows 10+ / macOS / Linux / mobile / wasm / (+ web DOM with Dioxus Web) - Rust - Memory safety: borrow checked - Styling: CSS (support matrix: https://blitz.is/status/css…

Hi! Interesting! Your frameworks seems to be a kind of web browser, with dynamic content. Adi2 takes a different approach. Your entire app is static code. Every widget, every style is built at compile time. No interpreters or parsers at runtime.

-- Why Ada, well and why Rust? I guess it depends on your taste...

You can know more about Ada here: https://learn.adacore.com/courses/intro-to-ada/chapters/intr...

It is a language with a long history, completely defined both the language and it's runtime library, it is an ISO standard, it is readable, it is modern, it has many features both for embedded and general purpose use, it has 1st class support on GCC as a frontend. Maybe it does not have a borrow checker as of today, but if you need to harden you can use the Ada/SPARK subset, a very interesting language, that can prove program correctness at compile time.

Re: Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

#6

Post by nicoburns »

ovenpasta wrote: post #5
nicoburns wrote: post #4

I'm going to ask the obvious question: why ADA? --- My framework (Dioxus Native - https://github.com/dioxuslabs/blitz ) would fit quite nicely into your comparison table: - Compiles to self-contained OS-native app bundle - - GPU or CPU rendering - Windows 10+ / macOS / Linux / mobile / wasm / (+ web DOM with Dioxus Web) - Rust - Memory safety: borrow checked - Styling: CSS (support matrix: https://blitz.is/status/css…

Hi! Interesting! Your frameworks seems to be a kind of web browser, with dynamic content. Adi2 takes a different approach. Your entire app is static code. Every widget, every style is built at compile time. No interpreters or parsers at runtime. -- Why Ada, well and why Rust? I guess it depends on your taste... You can know more about Ada here: https://learn.adacore.com/courses/intro-to-ada/chapters/intr... It is a l…

> Every widget, every style is built at compile time.

Huh. That does sound cool. Does that mean that the XML and CSS is parsed and resolved at compile time? How does that handle dynamic content changes (e.g. content changes in response to user input).

Note that while Blitz applies CSS and runs layout at runtime, the scripting layer (equivalent of JS in the browser or Dart in flutter) is AOT-compiled Rust.

Re: Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

#7

Post by tosti »

There's so much repetition in there. E.g.: (adi-json.adb)

    if not W.After_Key (W.Depth) then
        -- things
    else
        W.After_Key (W.Depth) := False;
    end if;
    -- ...more things...
    W.After_Key (W.Depth) := False;
And what's the deal with those filenames? If you replace adi- with TIMMEH, you'll see what I mean.

Code should be more DRY (don't repeat yourself).

Re: Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

#8

Post by ovenpasta »

nicoburns wrote: post #6
ovenpasta wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! Interesting! Your frameworks seems to be a kind of web browser, with dynamic content. Adi2 takes a different approach. Your entire app is static code. Every widget, every style is built at compile time. No interpreters or parsers at runtime. -- Why Ada, well and why Rust? I guess it depends on your taste... You can know more about Ada here: https://learn.adacore.com/courses/intro-to-ada/chapters/intr... It is a l…

> Every widget, every style is built at compile time. Huh. That does sound cool. Does that mean that the XML and CSS is parsed and resolved at compile time? How does that handle dynamic content changes (e.g. content changes in response to user input). Note that while Blitz applies CSS and runs layout at runtime, the scripting layer (equivalent of JS in the browser or Dart in flutter) is AOT-compiled Rust.

The XML is just a layer, it gets compiled to normal code that creates / operates on the widget tree. On any user input callbacks are just Ada code that can again apply changes to widgets, like states, or add / remove widgets or set properties like label text etc. The CSS is also converted to Ada constants that are used by the styling engine at runtime. You can check the getting started, it shows how it is done both as pure Ada or as XML/CSS.

Re: Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

#9

Post by ovenpasta »

tosti wrote: post #7

There's so much repetition in there. E.g.: (adi-json.adb) if not W.After_Key (W.Depth) then -- things else W.After_Key (W.Depth) := False; end if; -- ...more things... W.After_Key (W.Depth) := False; And what's the deal with those filenames? If you replace adi- with TIMMEH, you'll see what I mean. Code should be more DRY (don't repeat yourself).

I agree on the repetitions those need cleanup. Regarding filenames, it is a GNAT convention (the GCC's ada compiler) where we need to have the package name on it separated by -

Re: Show HN: A Modern GUI Library for Ada: CSS Styling, XML UI, SDL3

#10

Post by OneWingedShark »

tosti wrote: post #7

There's so much repetition in there. E.g.: (adi-json.adb) if not W.After_Key (W.Depth) then -- things else W.After_Key (W.Depth) := False; end if; -- ...more things... W.After_Key (W.Depth) := False; And what's the deal with those filenames? If you replace adi- with TIMMEH, you'll see what I mean. Code should be more DRY (don't repeat yourself).

GNAT (not Ada) has an implementation restriction that you cannot have multiple compilation-units in a single file; I believe that the dot-replacement is a holdover from when GNAT/GCC was dealing with DOS.
Post reply on HN