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Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

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Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#11

Post by SubiculumCode »

tomc1985 wrote: post #6

It is foolish to pursue consumer space in this age. The muggles want mobile. This is a wonderful opportunity for us original computer nerds... with the mainstream leaving for their terrible mobile devices computers can finally go back to being tools for power users. The appliance-like expectations of the mainstream was the worst thing that ever happened to traditional computing.

In some ways, I COMPLETELY AGREE. UI 'cleanness' killing 'functionality' is so late 2000's, please. Let's move on. I use my box professionally and need to get shit done. I don't need bouncy. I don't need address bars that hide things and make it non-copyable. Yes, date-modified is a useful sort. Don't hide it like MS did. Yes terminals are awesome and should be front and center. Don't hide them and pretend they are embarrassing and try to hide them under some menu.

But in other ways I disagree. There are plenty of options for the power-user to adapt their environment right now. How are we hurting? (Unless you are corporate and they restrict you to some gimped UI.

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#12

Post by merlijn_s »

dcgudeman wrote: post #9
rjzzleep wrote: post #8

I still think the whole Linux Desktop problem can be summarized in one sentence: There is a lack of a simple desktop app development environment. Yes there is GTK and yes there QT. But regardless of how much people may hate Xcode, it allowed people to create solid desktop applications in a fraction of the time that was needed to do the same in either GTK or QT. It's better documented, it's smoother, it's easier to st…

I agree. I commented earlier about how I think they should pool their resources to create an Xcode for linux. Seems like one kind of already exists ( https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder ) but I don't how much is being invested in it. And honestly I don't really care that much about the language or the UI framework so long as they just pick one.

With the flatpack integration, Builder really has the potential to become the Xcode for Linux.

I hope that Ubuntu starts to support Builder. Ubuntu tried something similar with qtcreator and the Ubuntu sdk, but that was a really bad experience. Let's hope that the switch to Gnome also means that Ubuntu switch their efforts to Builder.

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#13

Post by merlijn_s »

marktangotango wrote: post #5

I was rolling my eyes reading this and then hit this, which is the real value of the article IMO: > few Linux platforms (if any?) had taken a series whack at building a consumer grade app and developer experience. We tried, it was not successful, and instead of digging up the past I would rather ensure we can inform the future. "What not to do, and how not to do it" are at least one valid take away from that whole er…

One of the big issues with their attempt was ~0 support or documentation for porting existing applications. Everything was focused around building an Ubuntu app from scratch using their custom qtquick-based SDK, but that's not what we needed.

edit: for more info: This guy made a beautiful summary of the issues with the dev experience around Ubuntu (Touch): http://www.lieberbiber.de/2017/06/20/my-ubuntu-for-mobile-de... [starts from 6. "The life of an app developer was too hard."]

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#14

Post by gabrielcsapo »

Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't the best move forward just be supporting and tuning https://electron.atom.io to make it more performant and supported on linux? Yes it is a battery killer, but I can see it being better if everyone put their tasks to making that a non issue.

edit: why the down votes? This is a platform agnostic framework. I understand the performance is bad, but the one reason that linux doesn't have the same applications as windows and OSX is the window manager. A lot of amazing apps have been created using electron which has allowed people to even remotely think about moving over.

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#15

Post by rjzzleep »

merlijn_s wrote: post #12
dcgudeman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I commented earlier about how I think they should pool their resources to create an Xcode for linux. Seems like one kind of already exists ( https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder ) but I don't how much is being invested in it. And honestly I don't really care that much about the language or the UI framework so long as they just pick one.

With the flatpack integration, Builder really has the potential to become the Xcode for Linux. I hope that Ubuntu starts to support Builder. Ubuntu tried something similar with qtcreator and the Ubuntu sdk, but that was a really bad experience. Let's hope that the switch to Gnome also means that Ubuntu switch their efforts to Builder.

flatpack solves a deployment/distribution issue. distribution is irrelevant when you have nothing to distribute.

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#16

Post by sjellis »

dcgudeman wrote: post #9
rjzzleep wrote: post #8

I still think the whole Linux Desktop problem can be summarized in one sentence: There is a lack of a simple desktop app development environment. Yes there is GTK and yes there QT. But regardless of how much people may hate Xcode, it allowed people to create solid desktop applications in a fraction of the time that was needed to do the same in either GTK or QT. It's better documented, it's smoother, it's easier to st…

I agree. I commented earlier about how I think they should pool their resources to create an Xcode for linux. Seems like one kind of already exists ( https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder ) but I don't how much is being invested in it. And honestly I don't really care that much about the language or the UI framework so long as they just pick one.

Red Hat have been sponsoring Christian Hergert (https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/) to work on Builder full-time for a while now, with a specific focus on Flatpak integration, and there are other contributors, including GSoC students working on specific features.

The missing piece is public server infrastructure for accepting Flatpak packages from GNOME Builder and distributing them to GNOME Software clients, and that is currently in development as https://flathub.org/

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#17

Post by merlijn_s »

gabrielcsapo wrote: post #14

Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't the best move forward just be supporting and tuning https://electron.atom.io to make it more performant and supported on linux? Yes it is a battery killer, but I can see it being better if everyone put their tasks to making that a non issue. edit: why the down votes? This is a platform agnostic framework. I understand the performance is bad, but the one reason that linux doesn't…

Programming languages or platforms aren't the issue. Software packaging and distribution is. Porting is easy. Getting your software to users is hard.

Look at the Minecraft pocket edition (and its Windows 10 respin), one of the devs said that it would be trivial to port that to desktop Linux but they would have to set up their own payment and distribution system, which just isn't worth it for that tiny market.

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#18

Post by JohnTHaller »

gabrielcsapo wrote: post #14

Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't the best move forward just be supporting and tuning https://electron.atom.io to make it more performant and supported on linux? Yes it is a battery killer, but I can see it being better if everyone put their tasks to making that a non issue. edit: why the down votes? This is a platform agnostic framework. I understand the performance is bad, but the one reason that linux doesn't…

Browser-based apps still kinda suck. Battery-wise, UI-wise in terms of integration, accessibility-wise, etc. And they're a huge step down in programming language availability vs native apps.

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#19

Post by dcgudeman »

merlijn_s wrote: post #12
dcgudeman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I commented earlier about how I think they should pool their resources to create an Xcode for linux. Seems like one kind of already exists ( https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder ) but I don't how much is being invested in it. And honestly I don't really care that much about the language or the UI framework so long as they just pick one.

With the flatpack integration, Builder really has the potential to become the Xcode for Linux. I hope that Ubuntu starts to support Builder. Ubuntu tried something similar with qtcreator and the Ubuntu sdk, but that was a really bad experience. Let's hope that the switch to Gnome also means that Ubuntu switch their efforts to Builder.

I hope so, but honestly I feel like they are trying to keep it too general. I was looking at some of the critical components like Glade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glade_Interface_Designer) and noticed this: Glade is programming language–independent, and does not produce code for events, but rather an XML file that is then used with an appropriate binding (such as GtkAda for use with the Ada programming language)

Maybe Ada is more popular than I know, but I would think it's more valuable to spend time making the development process better for C++ devs (or w/e) than build a system so general that it can support Ada.

Re: Consolidating the Linux Desktop App Story: An Idea

#20

Post by hjek »

rjzzleep wrote: post #8

I still think the whole Linux Desktop problem can be summarized in one sentence: There is a lack of a simple desktop app development environment. Yes there is GTK and yes there QT. But regardless of how much people may hate Xcode, it allowed people to create solid desktop applications in a fraction of the time that was needed to do the same in either GTK or QT. It's better documented, it's smoother, it's easier to st…

Racket is well documented, has a well working (if slightly heavy) IDE, and packages an app by running "raco exe" (Around 6.5 mb for a "HelloWorld". That could be worse.). And you can package for Windows just as easily using Wine. I've found the error messages of Racket very friendly also. It has never been easier to build GNU/Linux Desktop Apps.

http://racket-lang.org/

Extremely easy to do GUIs, and they have weird DSLs, for example for video editing and shell scripting:

http://docs.racket-lang.org/video/index.html http://docs.racket-lang.org/rash/index.html

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